We have cut off our cable and our phoneline subscription and replaced it with Magicjack and OTA broadcasting. I don’t know why we waited so long to do this. I suppose back then it was more convenient to subscribe to the combo package that supposedly seemed like a good deal, or so we were led to believe. How deluded could we have been? Being on that for 5 years since we first moved to the greater Tampa area, my family blindedly paid the fees. We just realized that the phone as a standalone service cost $40 a month to keep and the cable cost $70 a month and that is sans the taxes and surcharges. I grew up not caring for television at all but my husband on the other hand cannot go without it.
We have long heard of Magicjack and I don’t know why we haven’t jumped to it until now. We could have saved some bucks but then again, I didn’t like the idea of having to change the home phone number which we had for quite a long time, yet now, we are really pushed to put dislikes aside and just go with practicality. To tell you the truth, we have no regrets transitioning to the Magicjack since the call quality seems to be just as decent as a Brighthouse subscribed phoneline. To anyone out there contemplating on switching, it is the best thing you could possibly do especially during these times of economic duress.
As far as cable is concerned, I am so glad we have decided to pull the plug. Most of the cable programming my kids watch is readily accessible on Netflix. Getting an antenna was our only option to avail of the free TV programming to watch current events and that we did. We tried 2 Philips antennas and none of them yielded as many channels as we hoped for. I did some research and settled for the last antenna we tried which was the RCA ANT1450BR. What attracted us to it is its design, the ability to be able to hang it on the wall and not having to get up to adjust it. It’s not too much of an eyesore like a traditional rabbit ear antenna. We get about 20 channels and we’re pretty content with that since we won’t have to pay any monthly fees! Yay!
What’s shown is a snapshot of PBS Kid’s Frannie’s Feet. I am amazed by the quality of the transmission coming from this antenna, although it has its downside of occasional interruptions, but not too bad. The antenna is set up on the wall. I wish there was some way to hide the wire. It’s a bit unsightly and it’s something I definitely have to get used to. I could lay it flat on the TV stand but doing so actually hampers us from getting the maximum number of channels. I’ll trade saving money over aesthetics when it comes to this. The cost of the antenna practically paid for itself. Combined with Netflix, we’re really not missing much and we most certainly will not be missing the recurring monthly cable bill.
My advice to those who have not yet hit their financial bottom line and is still subscribing to cable; there really is no reason to toss your hard-earned money on cable companies who do not even bother to care about your financial circumstances. The least they could do is try to come up with more affordable packages, something like a “Recession Special” rate for the economically challenged. Their pricing would soon become their own undoing like Blockbuster video. We still subscribe to Brighthouse for our internet connection (this we truly cannot do without) but phoneline and cable subscriptions for most households would soon be a thing of the past.