How to watch T.V without cable

About a year ago we moved into this new house (duplex.) We were hit hard as far as gas,electric and bills were concerned. After much struggling and owing Comcast over 500 bucks we decided to cut cable and phone and only keep our high speed internet. We now use 3 programs to keep us constantly covered as far as television goes.

 1. Netflix:
        We love Netflix. I have several sites that monitor potential releases of popular movies and shows, kids shows, documentaries etc so we can watch them as they come out. Our queue is over 250 items long, and we keep adding every time something new comes out. It is very good for kids, lots of educational shows, shows we watched as kids too. They`ve began to add some Disney movies too lately. To be honest we don`t miss the commercials. We also surprisingly don`t miss the dvd portion of Netflix either.

2. Hulu Plus: 
      We started with the free trial of Hulu Plus maybe 3-4 months after we cut cable, just to see how it was different. While the layout and movement is a big annoying, there is a bigger variety of Anime`s on Hulu, as well as current television shows and episodes. The movie section is lacking, though. We don`t mind that so much. We ended up keeping Hulu on and I manage it accordingly, making sure we don`t have the same shows on both.

3. Amazon Instant:
    Tony got a bit obsessed with Amazon this year, and we have ordered some stuff from it for way cheaper than we would have gotten it at the store. He signed up for Prime, which gave us a year of free Amazon Instant, and so far we like it. It is good for movies mainly, but does have some shows that we haven`t found on either Netflix or Hulu Plus such as Dr.Who and Stripperella.

While we do hope other channels come out with affordable apps/programs such as these soon, we haven`t even invested in an antenna because we just don`t miss live television at all. Try it for yourself, we are saving over 100$ a month including the fact that we upped our internet speeds to 50mbps and pay 8$ a month for Netflix and HuluPlus. It really does add up. Also we anticipate that it will save more when Drake gets older because we don`t have commercials trying to sell him stuff :)

We enjoy these programs on our Smart tv and Roku box, as well as the xbox and the netgear box. the whole house is connected with our very worth it Netgear wireless router.

     
 

My Favorite Music progams

I love music. Music puts me in the mood to write, gets me out of sad moods, helps me cope, helps me get away, and just keeps me busy. It is not merely entertainment for me and I don`t stick to one genre either. My musical tastes range from k-pop,j-pop and j rock, to russian rock, german industrial and even this really awesome A Cappella group called Van Canto.

  I used to use Itunes to get all of my music, but it was costly and limited. I was always finding better stuff on YouTube and all over the internet. For awhile I was downloading through LimeWire (until I learned it was illegal) and then just ripping songs from the Cd`s of my friends.

 Recently I have found 2 ways of getting my music fix. At home I use Spotify, which isn`t as limited as Itunes, but is still missing some stuff. I believe Spotify builds its database from producers and users. It is a social music program/app/whatever that allows you to follow other people`s music, playlists, genres, etc. You can build playlists, follow Artists, even find out the top 100 in other countries.

In the car we have begun to use Slacker Radio, a free app with limited commercials  (and even those are amusing.) Tony found it one day and we listened to it all the way up to visit his family. I liked that it quieted itself to allow my navigation to talk. Pandora just forced me to try and hear the navigator through the music which was irritating.

Both of these come in a free version and paid version, but as we know I am very frugal so of course we stick to the free ones :)