Wanting to cut out the cable bill. Any advice?

  • Thread starter Thread starter punisherthunder
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
P

punisherthunder

Guest
Money is super tight now in our house and I’m wanting to cut the cable bill. It’s $158 a month for cable and internet. To give some perspective, my electric bill was only $65 for all of Christmas! Of course I called the cable company and they could reduce my channels by half for only a $14 reduction in my bill.

We watch only about 5 real channels and don’t have use for the others. I’ve heard SlingTV can be ok, but I’ve read some bad reviews.

Anyone have some advice?
 
I have AirTV. No Dish, no cable, no AT&T, just an antenna. I still get many TV channels including local stations… I have an extra line with T-moble and use an older cell phone as a HotSpot. This costs me ten dollars for the extra line on my cellphone bill.
Hope this helps.
 
We use Netflix and also subscribe to a VPN (paid) so that we can access British and American TV shows through TV channel web sites. (Netflix doesn’t allow you to use proxy servers anymore.) We have not had cable for at least 3 years or so and don’t really miss it.
 
You might want to check on how much of your cable bill is for Internet access. If you go with a streaming service you’re still going to need access to the Internet.

Beyond that, there are a number of streaming services and you need to decide what is important to you. Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime all offer movies and TV shows, but not the latest episodes. Sling and DirecTV Now offer cable channels in different packages. Both Sling and DirecTV Now have free trial offers so you can check them out. Where you may find things lacking is getting broadcast TV channels unless you can get them over the air.

Depending on what combination of services you use, you may end up spending as much as you do on cable. $10 for this one and $20 for that one plus this added channel and that added service can add up.
 
Acorn is also great for streaming British/Anglosphere stuff and it’s only $4 or $5 a month.
 
DirectTv or any satellite tv will not work because we rent the house and the landlord forbids satellite installation.

I can stream Sling through my Xbox One, but was unsure about it’s reliability. Verizon Fios was a dead end too.

We have Hulu and Crackle, but I was looking for some other local channels and some news ones.

For those who asked, my internet is only $50, but that is for 1gig speed which you really can’t beat at that price.
 
Like others, we don’t use cable for TV anymore at all; Youtube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, VidAngel (though currently not available), etc fulfill all movie watching needs.

It’s liberating.
 
For local broadcast channels, you can install indoor antennas. This works best if you are close to a metropolitan area, and you have to play around with antenna positioning for best reception. The antennas I have are just attached to the wall with command strips. I would google antennas to get more info about your best options

I did this a few years ago, for the same reason you mention. Neflix and Amazon Prime in addition to the antennas made it easier to do without cable.
 
We use Amazon Prime ($99 per year) and Netflix ($9.99 per month). If you want to choose one I would go with Netflix. Amazon Prime’s usage is double Netflix to stream the same movie, if we watch prime more during the month we go over 200 Gb easily. We also use a digital antenna to get the local TV stations.
 
punisherthunder said:
I thought they operate on satellite? Which devices do they stream through?
Click to expand...
Compatible Devices

Amazon Fire TV
Amazon Fire TV Stick
Apple TV (4th generation)
AndroidTM phone 4.4 and higher
Android tablet 4.4 and higher
Chromecast (for Android only)
iPad iOS 9 and higher
iPhone iOS 9 and higher
iPod Touch version 9 and higher
Compatible Browsers

Internet Explorer 11+ for Windows 8 or higher
Chrome 50+
Safari 8+
Note: You will be prompted to download the Silverlight plug-in when you first stream using a web browser. If you experience issues while streaming with the Safari browser, we recommend using Chrome to stream DIRECTV NOW.

Not Yet Available

Chromecast (for Apple iOS)
Roku
XBOX One
 
If you don’t watch sports, you can definitely get the rest of the programming for way less.

If you do watch sports and aren’t willing to give it up, cable is probably your best option for convenience and pricing. I looked into what we would need for the various things my husband watches and it would have been more expensive than cable and an enormous hassle to set up and pay for.

Sports are what drives the price of cable packages.

(This is a permanent point of contention for us.)

It has gotten pricier in recent years. When we first got TV and Internet bundled when we were married, it was $75/month with DVR. Now it’s close to double that, and I looked forever to make sure I was getting the best price we could. And we get fewer channels than we did back then.

Just Internet has gone up too, probably because of all the streaming there is now.
 
You might want to try no tv at all. We get movies from the library & occasionally buy movies, but that’s it. We watch television on rare occasions & haven’t found anything we’d be willing to pay for.
 
NBC, CBS and ABC all have some of their recent shows available for free streaming.
 
We got rid of cable 21 yrs ago when time warner came to town, bought out the local company and hiked up our bill. Been living gleefully on free TV with an antenna. When TV became digital we had to upgrade the antenna, $25. Yes, there is free TV.
 
No cable here.

We have Roku, which is great. We stream Netflix and Hulu through it, which is where we watch most of our shows. Through Roku you can also purchase certain channels if there is something you really like. There are also numerous free channels you can access.

We also have an antenna for some local programming, like local news.

We have never had cable in the 6 1/2 years we have been married (except one trial month but we quickly realized we didn’t need it). We don’t miss it at all.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top