How to Lower Your Cable Tv Bill
One of the easiest was to lower your monthly expenses is to start looking at the things you could probably do without. Your cable or satellite bill is a great example. You most likely spend anywhere from $30-$120 per month for this mind-melting waste of time. When it really comes down to it you are spending a ton of money for only a few channels or programs you actually want to watch. A great solution to this would be selecting and paying for your tv programming a la carte. Many mainstream tv networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, CTV, South Park Studios) allow you to watch their popular shows from their companies websites free of charge. The one drawback is that these sites lookup your ip address to ensure you are inside the US. I will tell you how to get around this a bit later.
Another great site which aggregates most of the major networks content is Hulu.com. This site has become very popular as of late and is a free alternative to paid cable or satellite subscriptions.
I know many of you are asking “How can I watch Hulu on my bigscreen tv instaed of sitting in front of my computer monitor or laptop?” The answer can be simple if you have the correct hardware and a bit of patience. A new startup company called boxee has built a “media center” like application which pulls in the content from the various network websites and Hulu. Their program will also scan a directory of your media files and add the appropriate movie art along with the synopsis and cast. Currently it only runs on MAC or Ubuntu operating systems. If your laptop or computer is connected to your tv you now have a very capable media center with lots of free content to choose from. If you do not own a MAC or do not run linux you can purchase an Apple TV instead. A company called ATVFlash sells an easy to use software hack which will install boxee along with many other apps onto your Apple TV while still maintaining the original Apple features.
Another benefit of replacing your cable subscription with an Apple TV is that you get access to the entire Itunes library of Movies, Tv shows, podcasts and You Tube. This would allow you to purchase only the shows you want to see which may work out to being much cheaper than paying for the full cable or satellite service. This could also save you from purchasing a DVR or paying your monthly Tivo subsciption since the content on the Apple Tv is always sitting there waiting for you.
If you are outside of the US you can download a free program called Hotspot Shield which will make your ip address appear as a valid US ip. Since you are essentially proxying your internet traffic through Hotspot Shield you may see some lag or buffering problems on video from time to time.
These are a few ways to save money on your tv bill while still enjoying the content you love. I have included some links at the bottom of the article regarding the methods I just covered along with a few others.
