I recently bought a condo and am now looking for reasonable cable options.  Since I am living by myself, I do not have the luxury of splitting the cable bill and am looking for the most affordable option. Through my research, I have discovered that all the big name cable providers are offering deals on cable packages.  On first glance, you may think the deals are good.  However, take a look at the fine print.  These deals are not good at all!  This is what I discovered. AT&T which provides DirectTV, had a deal offering basic cable for as low as $29.99 for 12 months.  However, if you read the fine print you discover you must sign into a two year contract.  This means that after the first year, your cable bill nearly doubles to rates as high as $54-$60, and this is just for basic cable.  Imagine how much your bill would increase for add-ons!  Comcast and Verizon are also guilty of doing this same sneaky sale tactic.  Which leaves many consumers such as myself without an affordable cable option. I did find out courtesy of an ehow.com article, that cable providers are required by the FCC to offer a limited basic cable option.  I did try to inquire about this from Comcast and was informed that in my area it is still $20.99 per month and only gets you channels 1-22.  Is it me, or does that seem high?  I am at the point, where I would like them to bring back the analog rabbit antennas.  At least then I could get for free the standard 3 to 4 channels. This led my search in a new direction.  I discovered that Netflix is offering a one month free trial and then it is only $7.99 per month after the trial period is over.  With Netflix I can get thousands of movies and TV shows without the commercials.  However, I will lose the capability to watch shows when first aired.  That is the trade off. I will also need to purchase a Wii, Play Station or one of their other compatible components in order to get NetFlix to work on my TV within my Carousel White TV lift cabinet.   I have decided I would rather pay a one-time fee with very low monthly payments than pay high monthly payments over the years.  If you do the math, Netflix will save you hundreds.