I’ve had the idea to write about the reason why my husband and I do not have cable in my Notes app on my phone for a few months now. I had it planned in advance to write it this week and I think it’s awesome that one of my favorite bloggers, Blair just wrote her own post about this too. I’m writing this post in hopes that if you are on the fence about either getting rid of cable or deciding whether you want it at all, you will be able to see the benefits of not having it and it will help make your decision a little easier.
Why We Chose Not To Have Cable
My husband and I made the decision not to get cable back when we were engaged. I will be completely honest and say that a huge part of the decision was because we wanted to live very frugally. We believe that God gave us everything we have, including our money, and we wanted to be as responsible as we could with it. (We do not at all believe that those who have cable are not living frugally though. It was just a personal conviction for us.) We believed that we shouldn’t have cable because 1) We didn’t watch TV all that much and 2) We didn’t mind watching the shows that we do watch a day after they aired online. We also admittedly do not watch sports or the news so that obviously made the decision much easier as well.
The Benefits Of Not Having Cable
1| We save more money (obviously!)
If we were to have cable on top of our internet bill it would be probably close to double what we pay now. Considering we do not watch that much TV, it just wasn’t worth it and we enjoy all the money we now save because of it. 😉
2| We spend more time talking to each other.
Don’t get me wrong, we still watch some TV. We have Netflix and spend a good deal of time bingeing out in front of our favorite shows, but there isn’t a constant distraction going on in the background like there could be if we had regular cable. The TV is only on if we intentionally put on a show to watch. It goes right off after we finish watching our shows, which means that we talk more throughout our day.
3| It creates a much more peaceful household
Now I realize this is very much an opinionated statement. Some people I understand love the sound of having the chatter of a TV in the background of their home while they do chores. I however think it’s very distracting and I enjoy either the quiet or music in the background as I’m cleaning or doing other chores. To me this causes our home to have a lot more peaceful feel to it.
4| It causes us to worship more
The reason why I say this is because not having cable gives us a lot more control over what we are hearing throughout the day. I am choosing to either enjoy the silence, which usually causes me to pray more, or I am choosing to put on music, which a lot of the time is worship music. This causes me to have a closer relationship with God than if I had a TV on in the background instead of these things.
5| We talk more with our guests
Not having a TV to put on in the background while we have guests over makes us be a lot more intentional about entertaining our guests. I have been to some houses where the sole entertainer was the TV, which was not to say that we didn’t talk, but the visit was more centered around sitting around a TV than around a table. (This was mostly at family’s house.) We enjoy getting to sit around our table and be intentional with our guests and spend more quality time with them because we are not distracted or using the TV as entertainment.
What About In The Future?
We very much enjoy not having cable now and do not miss it at all, which leads me to believe that this will stay the norm in our household. However, one of the main reasons why we did not get it in the first place was because we wanted to live more frugally, so if we are making a lot more money and can very easily afford it, this could possibly change.
It’s hard to say now how we will feel about TV when it comes to having children, since right now we don’t have any. We may change our feelings completely when we have children, but as of right now we very much enjoy not having cable and do not see a change to this in our near future.
How do you feel about cable? Are you a die-hard fan or are you like us and have decided not to have it in your home? I’d love to hear your opinion on this topic. I feel like a lot more people these days are choosing to forgo cable altogether.
