Cable Companies hate you

The divorce from cable

About a year ago, my wife and I decided to make the terrifying and crazy leap to "cut the cord". We had been disgusted with the amount of money and time we wasted on cable. Now before you say, "well you had bad service", Let me tell you up front we had the best cable ever. Fiber optic, super fast, a gazillion channels, and a huge screen with surround sound. While all that was good, spending over $150.00 per month was really getting dumb. We found ourselves sitting in front of the TV for hours on end just surfing because literally there was NOTHING on.

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I don't know how cable broke the laws of averages but they somehow did by giving us no programming worth watching most of the year.

My wife was much less nervous about getting rid of the cable box. I on the other hand had a small vigil to mourn the loss of our beloved TV.

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I finally brought up the nerve to set our d-day to have the cable shut off. (I don't know if you know this but they actually make you bring the box back to a store and explain yourself). I had researched exactly the next steps we were going to take for when we really did want to just veg, and found myself looking at online streaming. We already had a Amazon prime account and they have free streaming for many shows, Netflix was another for older  movies, and we decided to go with HULU for our episodes that are still on tv. I was going to stream through my Playstation 3. Here is a link for a free trial of Amazon Prime. Give it a try.

Then the day came. We canceled cable, I took the box back with remotes mind you, and set up the 3 services for our viewing pleasure. Can I just say there were 2 great un-expected results from this... The first was we didn't miss a beat. All the shows we loved were there and we could watch them on demand. Sure there was a few month delay on some from the season finale, but for the most part we didn't have any problems. Secondly, we watch less TV in general. Since it is on demand and there are few if any ads, we really do just have more time to do things like, well blogging for one.

We even have some of our friends that were convinced to do the same and while they are saving money the also saw similar results. So break up with your cable provider, get rid of the extra boxes and remotes and give it a try. You may just find your life just became simpler. And that is the goal isn't it?


Gary McCoy is broker and owner of Tartan Real Estate Services in DFW Texas. Broker license number #0588837. Any opinions in this article are just that, opinions. If you have specific questions or concerns please contact us at 877-498-7323

Scaling down

The move to smaller spaces

-By Gary McCoy, Broker Tartan Real Estate Services 

For years, no generations, the American dream has been to have big cars, big houses, big lives, and big... well everything. In the last decades and as the economic situation has changed, we have been moving back to the smaller sides of life. Cars are getting smaller not bigger, people are learning to live with less, and taking into consideration how much they really need.

I for one am excited. That sounds counter-intuitive being I am a real estate broker and bigger usually means more money, but honestly becoming not only more aware of all that you don't need and all the new things you can do with much less makes me excited.

In my 10 years or so of selling real estate I have run across so many people that want to go look at the 4500 sq ft house or say they really need  that media room, or huge 3 car garage. In 99% of those cases I would say their quality of life went down and not up when they moved in. Yards got smaller, things got more expensive, people felt the need to fill the voids in their homes with stuff they really didn't need or really use.

Then there is the sad and uncomfortable aspect that in many cases you have more house than really you can afford, causing you to be underwater (sorry for the picture pun), and in some really horrible cases even loose the home. Smaller is better. Your grandparents knew this. Your great grandparents really knew this and worked hard to ensure that they were as frugal as they could be so when hard times came they were ready.

   

I say get rid of the huge mortgage, get back outdoors, and feel how freeing it can be to not be house poor. That is my goal. I hope we can work toward this goal together.

Going forward I am going to be discussing how to make this move and what you can do to get the most out of the spaces you have. If you have any ideas, or want to share links to your favorite design and small space sites, I welcome it.


Gary McCoy is the broker for Tartan Real Estate Services in DFW, broker license number 0588837. All opinions are just that, opinions. If you have specific questions or concerns please contact us at 877-498-7323.