As I realized that we’d hit the one-year mark since cutting the cord, I also realized that I’d failed miserably with my plan to provide a glimpse into our journey. Sorry.
Not as a replacement for all of those things I was going to write about, but simply as an update, we’re still cord-cutters. We have an internet connection, and that’s it—no cable or satellite subscription, and no landline phone, for that matter. We have a fairly typical set of streaming products that we subscribe to: Netflix, Amazon Prime Videos, and DirecTV NOW. Over the course of the year, we’ve also subscribed to others services, like Hulu—typically to binge on a specific show—for short periods of time, and then cancelling. Additionally, we have an HD antenna setup, which feeds OTA broadcast signals to our TVs.
So far, so good. We don’t have the ability to DVR shows at the moment, but we’ve hardly missed it. The kids, of course, were already accustomed to streaming almost exclusively, and even the adults have adjusted. Aside from the impact on our wallet, the biggest change cutting the cord has had on our family has been a big reduction in time spent mindlessly watching TV, just because it’s there. Also, I was able to read 52 books in 2017.