Ditching cable

Spring is this week, but it’s still looking wintery around here.

It’s sunny, though!  The nice thing is the ground was warm from before, so walkways and driveways are nice and clear without being icy.

I spent a lot of time walking this weekend. Downtown and back quite a bit, about 10 miles worth. We were out for St. Patrick’s Day at our summer place, Mean Max Brewery.

Out with family. The group was okay, but way too loud. Or maybe I’m getting old, I don’t know LOL!

I spent a good portion of time taking pictures of product with John being my lighting assistant! Plus styling the little suitcase I painted last weekend.

Shelley has the design eye, so I sent her the picture to critique and she gave me some pointers to do. I’ll keep working on it. The wholesale show is a week from Monday, so I have time to play with it.

We did take time out for some coffee, though!

I think I am more busy now than when i was working my other job plus this stuff. At least I enjoy it.

We finally decided to cut the cable cord. The only thing that we really used of the cable was the DVR for Jeopardy and a few shows. We have Amazon Prime and a fire TV stick, so ditching cable is not a big deal since the main show we watch is on Amazon (Man in the High Castle). The only thing is getting as many football games as we did before, but I guess we will live. And Tour de France. That we can buy an internet package for if we want. We also signed up for Netflix again to stream some shows. We started watching Making of a Murderer and gosh that whole thing is so frustrating! We don’t know how the season ends or where he is now, so no spoilers please!  Overall I haven’t missed cable at all except we don’t get to see Jeopardy hardly ever.

— Another new food find! These are Nasoya vegetable dumplings with tofu:

These are quite good! John cooked them up by pan sauteing them and we had ginger dipping sauce on the side.  I tend to eat a lot more vegetarian at home with John going veggie.  This makes a nice alternative to omelets 😀

Any of you get rid of cable?

20 thoughts on “Ditching cable

  1. Lesley

    I ditched cable (Dish, actually) a couple years ago and haven’t missed it. Nothing appealed to me and I was watching very little, and what little I did watch I was recording on the DVR. So it became a huge waste of money and we ditched it.

  2. Keni

    I ditched cable 5 years ago. I bought rabbit ears off Amazon and I am able to pick up 6 channels over broadcast (cbs, fox, etc) that way I can watch Greys Anatomy, This is Us, Jeopardy, news, etc and if/when I miss those, I can watch online the next day. I also have Netflix. Losing cable is one of the best decisions I ever made for myself (money savings, time savings, investing my own life)…I don’t think I could live without internet though 🙂

    1. Lori Post author

      We still have the internet LOL! We get the local channels still with the antenna plugged in, although it’s not rabbit ears 😀

  3. deb

    We’ve thought about it alot but we are so out of it.. we don’t know anything about the other services you mentioned… Oh i’veheard of them but i have not idea how they work… we are not techno savvie.. We don’t have Amazon Prime or the firestick thingy you mentioned.. or Netflix of any kind… Wouldn’t know where to begin… then some mention Hulu… or Roku or something or other… all sounds very complicated to me…

    I have to say on your suitcase I think if you would have kept the suitcase vintage looking then the faded vintage lettering would match as it is i think i would prefer the letter to not be faded in spots.. it would make it easier to read…………deb

    1. Lori Post author

      I didn’t know a lot about the other services either, but we already had a Roku so we could watch our channels in the bedroom upstairs.

  4. Kim

    That’s my only bill that I think is out of hand. $160/monthly for cable/internet. I watch a lot of HGTV and 48 Hours, Dateline, national and local news. I’ve never really investigated if I could find those shows without cable. I think your pic looks professionally done. Hope you get Spring soon. Snow begone!!!

    1. Lori Post author

      It’s ridiculously expensive, especially considering how little we watched of cable. We kept the internet. The fire stick has apps that let you get news and such, so you can pick and choose what you want in your feed.

  5. Shelley B

    I meant to tell you that when I’m styling displays, it’s almost never “right” the first go-round…I’ll play with it, step back, let it sit for a little bit, and then go and fiddle with it some more. I think you’ll have what you like soon enough – my other advice would be to take a picture with your phone so when you go to set it up at the show, you can replicate it.

    As for cable, we switched to DISH about 1.5 years ago because they had a super good deal for two years…which means that in September, we may be ditching it if they don’t keep the price down. We share Hulu and Netflix with our kadults (they pay for one and we pay for the other), and we’ll get HBO Now when Game of Thrones starts back up again, but that’s only for a few months. I kind of like being able to customize what I watch, but the main thing that has stopped us from losing live TV completely is college football – namely the Texas Aggies. Although with how they play some, er, most seasons, it wouldn’t be a great loss to not watch them…

    1. Lori Post author

      I was worried about football and cycling mostly and we can actually get all the local channels, so we can get a lot of the games. It’s just the ones on ESPN we won’t get without some package.

      I am doing some vignettes in my booth space. Since I am appealing to store buyers and not customers, I’m going to set my products up in different settings to show how it fits in many ways. That’s the plan anyway…

  6. Leah

    I don’t have cable, or even a TV. We recently got Amamzon Prime and my husbnd subscribed to “sling” through our internet company to watch sports online live.

    I just found out I can watch HGTV with it. Whee!!

  7. Helen

    I want to ditch cable so badly but my husband will not agree as pretty much every single thing he watches is on cable. I remind him of that each time he gripes about the cable bill cost!

    The snow is mostly melted around here, except my side of the street, which is the shady side this time of year. Hoping warmer temps this week will take care of that.

    Happy Spring!

  8. debby

    I got rid of my TV when that law came in that got rid of regular antennas, and you were supposed to get a blue box, which didn’t work in my wooded area, and I didn’t want to pay for cable. Slowly, the internet has taken over. I watch anything I want to on the internet (Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, etc) with NO commercials!

  9. Molly

    I got rid of cable because i hate commercials – too loud, bright and way too fast. Plus i would waste too much time mindlessly watching tv. I kept wifi and use Amazon for specific shows i want to see. I did try AT&T’s new service but again, commercials! Not worth it.

  10. Fran

    You really did a nice job at the suitcase.

    We still have cable because we watch the news and some Dutch TV shows that can’t be streamed plus R. watches Formula One and Moto GP and we need cable for that. We don’t have as much commercials as there are in the US. We have public and commercial TV stations. The public stations don’t have commercials during the show, only before and after. The commercial ones do have commercial breaks.
    I also have a subscription on Netflix which I like but often don’t have enough time to watch it. I started Making a Murderer last year but it couldn’t hold my attention and I quitted after 3 episodes and then look up on the internet what happened LOL.

  11. Donna

    Hi, Lori. I remember you from the old DWLZ days. Congratulations on all your accomplishments! I’m a huge cycling fan, and i cut the cable cord several years ago. I use IPTV to watch most of the European races. As long as you have reasonably fast Internet service at your home, you can install Kodi aka XBMC on your Fire TV Stick and install various add-ons to watch cycling, football, etc. There is a learning curve for getting comfortable with it, but it’s not terribly steep. There are many YouTube instructional videos to guide you through installing Kodi on a Fire Stick and for installing various builds and add-ons. You can e-mail me if you have questions.

  12. Susan

    We ditched cable twenty years ago. We lived many years without watching any TV at all (just an occasional DVD) and I loved it. We got a modern tv and a fire stick last year (no tv channels still), and that’s really all I need.

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