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Cancel Your Cable. Seriously.

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No one likes to waste money, right? There are two things that are even worse to waste.

  • Time

  • Energy

Money can be earned, and if more is needed, you can spend less or earn more. Energy is what you need to bring ideas to fruition. Unlimited time with no energy gets you nowhere, as does unlimited energy with no time. more

Cable TV tricks you into making the wrong evaluation of the value proposition. If companies can get you to think that either 100 channels at $30 a month or 700 HD channels at $100 a month is a better deal than the other option, they’ve won.

The real calculus is this: five to fifteen hours of my week wasted vs. spent intentionally. Really, you should be willing to pay your cable company the price of your bill if they could simply deliver to you additional time.

If the small cost of $100 month was all it took to get an extra five hours a week, I’d do immediately. I value my own time above $5 an hour, and you should to (This is why I’ve been trying to wake up earlier every day).

If not cable, then what?

Watching stuff is a lot of fun. I enjoy my fair share of movies, but I get them when I want them, and I don’t have to watch commercials. Between Redbox, Netflix, and all the free options for watching good showsonline, there’s no reason that by cutting your cable you’re missing out on entertainment opportunities.

Oh - and all commercials do is try to sell you stuff. We already know that things cannot buy happiness. Experiences and relationships are what matter. So reject passive entertainment, spend less time exposing yourself to ads for cleaning supplies, cars, hair products, clothing, insurance, fast food, soft drinks, and all the rest of that crap. You will not go wrong.

This article provides an excellent write-up of how to go about dropping the TV.