Cutting Off Cable TV Is It Worth It

Monthly budgeting is an important part of savvy financial planning. However, knowing where to cut spending can be tougher than it looks. A high monthly cell phone bill might be a good place to cut back and save some money, but an early termination fee and the fact that you need a phone for your business or lifestyle might make that an unwise way to save money. Another tempting target is cutting the monthly cable bill, but does that make sense financially?

For most Americans, cable TV has become a necessity of life. Good parenting tips for dad and moms suggest allowing children to watch educational shows and other good TV shows for kids. Even families receiving food stamps or other government assistance are no longer told that they must cut cable TV in order to be eligible. Additionally, in many cities and town, the local cable company provides more than just 500 channels of entertainment.

Also see, Find a good financial planner.

Unfortunately, most places still only have one cable company. That local monopoly may not count for legal purposes, but it sure does count for pricing purposes. Reducing your monthly cable bill is hard. Cutting down more than just a few bucks is even harder. That's why most people have considered cutting off cable altogether.

With the availability on TV shows online andsoftware like Windows Media Center making it easier to cut the cord and still watch television whenever you want to stopping cable is a tempting option.

Cutting off cable television sounds like a good idea at first. However, whether cutting off cable TV makes sense for you depends on a lot of factors. The most important factor is whether or not it will help you save money.

• Do you get more than just television from your cable company?
• How much is your monthly cable bill?
• Do you have a contract with your cable company?
• Are you planning on getting TV from satellite television, or are you going to watch tv shows online, or are you just going to stop watching all television?
• Do you work from home? (As a freelance writer, I need high-speed Internet access for my home office.)

Unless you can end the whole relationship with your cable company, cutting back on service may not be worth it. Thanks to bundling, many cable services packages are cheaper than buying just one service. Even when you can save money by cutting off cable TV, the difference between getting cable television or not may not save much money.

For example, with Comcast cable company, new customers can get cable Internet with a basic cable TV package for just $70 a month. It goes up to $99 after 6 months, but most of the time they will give you the better price again if you remember to call. Getting just the "Performance" Internet pages costs $43 per month. That is a savings of $27 per month over the Internet and TV package, but not an enormous monthly spending reduction.

Is cutting cable TV worth it then?

The answer is that if you would rather save $27 per month than be able to watch television shows without having to hook up a home media server or watch television online through your computer or laptop, then yes, cutting cable is worth it. Don't forget to factor in the possibility of renting good children's movies on DVD or even checking out kids movies from the library.

If not, then look for other ways to save like buying certain kinds of equipment rather than paying a monthly fee to rent a cable modem for example.