Shhh! Don’t tell my boss, but I finally did it. . .I cut the (cable) cord. You see, the parent company of my employer also owns a cable TV company. Now, the way I can rationalize the impact of this decision is to point out that this parent company does not offer cable TV services in the market in which I live. Therefore, I’m unable to enjoy this company’s services anyway. So, in a sense, I’m depriving another, non-aligned cable TV provider of this business, which is good for my employer’s business, no?
A little math, if you please: I had been paying $213.00 per month to the cable TV company. Upon researching non-cable TV options, I discovered that I could pay $40.00 per month to Hulu, and enjoy pretty much all the content I had received from the cable TV provider, including local broadcast channels. That $213.00 per month I had been paying did include (relatively unreliable) WiFi services. So, I needed to replicate that, and was able to, for $39.99 per month, with Verizon. That’s it; the math reveals net monthly savings of $133.00.
Now, I would be violating the terms of full disclosure implied in the unwritten contract which I have established with readers of this blog if I neglected to share with you that I needed to invest in a bit of upfront cost. I did have to pay $150.00 to purchase a wireless router, and, Roku sticks for each television, at $50.00 apiece (not required if you own a smart TV). I am embarrassed to admit that I equipped five televisions for a household of two with Roku sticks, so that’s another $250.00. That’s a total of $400.00 I spent in order to enable this cord-cutting. The ROI on that investment is achieved after three months. And, I will never again be saddled with those cable boxes, and those very stiff cables snaking all over the house. It’s quite liberating.
As to content, there is arguably much more content available in this brave new world of Roku and Hulu than there ever was during the dark days of cable TV. In fact, I am currently “binge-watching” (a practice I adopted by incorporating Netflix into our TV-watching regimen) two old TV series: “The Dick Van Dyke” show, a true classic; and a show from the ’80’s, “ALF” – admittedly, I’m not proud of the second one, but, hey, I’m enjoying it, and will continue binge-watching it. There are a host of other content-providers which offer movies and TV series, with no additional charge, simply by connecting to Hulu or Roku. The only TV series which I have been unable to secure so far, without charge, is the thirty-nine episode run of “The Honeymooners” – Amazon Prime offers it, but I am not a subscriber. So, if you have advice regarding where I might be able to secure “The Honeymooners” without jumping aboard the Amazon Prime bandwagon, let me know. And, if you too wish to cut your (cable) cord, I’ll lend you my scissors.
Thanks,
B.S.
thanksbs 