"Getting rid of everything that doesn’t matter allows you to remember who you are. Simplicity doesn’t change who you are, it brings you back to who you are."

Thursday, April 21, 2011

This Is A Test...This Is Only A Test

SM and I suspended our Direct TV account Sunday.  He agreed that it's ridiculous to spend $76 a month on something that we can get for free...(with a little effort.) 

Direct TV allows you to suspend your account for up to 6 months a year.  We suspended it rather than canceled it because we're pretty sure we'll pick Direct TV service back up again this fall simply for the sports.  Unless we decide to cancel, I asked Direct TV to resume service August 15th.  (Sports.  It's all about the sports.)

I asked SM if he'd be OK just watching sports on the big 4 (NBC,ABC,CBS and Fox) which we can get with our local antenna.  SM wants ESPN for college football and basketball.  Too bad you can't do an "a-la-carte" with your TV service.  Pick only the channels you want watch and pay as you go.

SM took an old computer that we had laying around, purchased an air card, a wireless keyboard and a mouse and has set up our big screen so we can watch TV online from sites like:

Hulu

I'm doing pretty good with the changes and I'd be happy keeping the set up as is and cancel Direct TV all together.

SM misses "flipping" the channels (what guy doesn't?) and thinks the local news people are idiots (who doesn't?).  

He also misses the DVR functions watching live TV, although I did point out to him that if we watches online, he can start, stop, FF or rewind as needed.

It'll take some getting used too but so far so good.

Funny...look what came in the mail yesterday.

 
How did they know? (grin)

3 comments:

  1. We were given a three month Netflix subscription for Christmas. I have to say that we just love it and canceled a lot of our channels...saving a great deal of money. "The Italia" got a Roku box which works with our wireless router and we can watch just about anything we want immediately. The box was about $50. but it is well worth it. I think that the monthly charge for Netflix is about $8.

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  2. Hi Tami!
    We recently tried to cancel our DirecTV TV service but found we couldn't because our internet satellite dish service is through DirecTV's policy. Confusing to us because we actually have two separate dishes...one for TV and one for internet. Because of where we live our choices are limited for internet service with neither DSL nor cable run down this part of our road.... up the road, yes....down the road, yes...just not right here where we are... probably something to do with our rock hill and they didn't want to dig(probably dynamite!)through all that!!! What we did do was reduce our TV service to the minimum to reduce our bill as much as possible. We also said we wished we could just "purchase" only the channels that we watch!!
    Good luck!
    Lisa

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  3. I did the same thing with netflix, but they hooked it up after the 6 months and I didnt want them to. After much fighting they refunded me. But they do send me cards all the time to sign up again at a discounted price. So even if you do cancel, they will offer you a much better rate. I have had no cable or net flix for two years and I love it. Never missed it at all.

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