To be completely honest, I don't always go over our bills with a fine tooth comb. I find the act of paying them to be SO repulsive, that I just want it over as soon as possible. But, these recent developments with our cable TV situation had me wondering. So, I forced myself to sit down and go through each line item one by one. By the way, if you've never done this, I highly recommend doing so on an empty stomach, because the horrors you will behold will surely make you wretch. Without going into too much detail, our bill with cable TV, phone and internet combined was hovering right around $280...every month! EVERY MONTH! For what? The same movies in constant rotation? A hundred channels we never watch? The answer is yes, to all of the above. So, my next step it seemed was to trim some fat.
When you're starting with a bill so wildly high when compared to the services you're getting, it doesn't take a lot of convincing to lose useless features. For instance, we had FOUR HD cable boxes, but we spent 95% of our time watching one TV. Granted we still wanted TV's in those rooms, so what to do? Enter TCL and their Roku TV's. Turns out, if you have just a single cable box in your home with a current subscription, chances are there is an app (or apps) that will allow you to see all your cable channels on the other Roku TV's without the rented cable boxes. Score! Even better in our case, my cable company had their own app, so I could just open that and not even know we had no box on the TV, getting even the premium channels without any extra effort or cost.
So, cutting cable boxes was a no brainer, but where to go from there. As a delved deeper into my bill, I saw how much I was being charged for our 17 movie channels. A little soul searching revealed that we almost never watched Cinemax or Showtime, which considering we had 5 of each was a bit shocking. So, snip, snip, snip, and all we were left with was HBO, which c'mon...Game of Thrones, am I right?
With all of the changes I had made, my bill went from a morbidly obese $280 down to a husky $220. Better, but still kinda pricey for my tastes. I knew I could do more, but I was really hesitant to sever all ties without a plan. So, I started doing some research into my options. It seemed like the two with the best plans in terms of cost and channels were Sling and DirecTV Now. After reading many reviews, it seemed picture quality was better with DirecTV Now, and more importantly, they carried both Hallmark Channels, which was a deal breaker for my wife. In terms of pricing, I could get 60+ channels for $35 and add HBO for only $5 more. $40 total for pretty much the same package I was getting from my cable company for considerably more. HBO alone was $21 from my cable company, but I could get it here for only $5?!? Granted it's only 3 channels of HBO, but I was lucky to watch one, let alone FIVE from the cable company. Unfortunately, DirecTV Now only carriers local stations in some markets, and wouldn't you know it, mine wasn't one of them. Oh, AND I still had to utilizes internet from my cable company and I was frightened by what that might cost without it being bundled with TV and phone. But I mean, how bad could it be?
Bad. It could be really bad. It seems the cable TV people really carry a grudge when you cut the cord. As part of a "bundle" my internet at 100 MBps cost only $45/month, and my phone was only $4/month. When I called to enquire on the changes to my account, the rep on the phone seemed almost gleeful as he told me the same internet connection would now cost $99 and my phone $21. What the what?!? Same service, same connection speeds...$67 more. Ouch. Okay, I'll play your little game...what else could I cut? I asked what the cost was for our internet access point, basically a Wi-Fi repeater. $30/month, or $360/year. I had them where I wanted them. For only $289 I could buy a 3 pack of Google WiFi mesh units, effectively giving me 4,500 sq' of WiFi coverage, far more than I needed for my house, but a $71 savings off the cable company's price for one year, and then free after that. But there was one more piece to my puzzle...local TV channels.
It seems getting local channels over the internet can be an issue, because the networks don't play well with streaming companies. My solution? Go old school, and get an antenna. I tried an indoor antenna that got 31 channels, but none of the big three (ABC, CBS, NBC). So, it was time to hit the roof and get an outdoor antenna. With the recent demise of Radio Shack (RIP), its a bit harder these days to get everything you need to mount an antenna on your roof. However, thanks to Amazon, it's not impossible. Just today I received the last component to make my dream of cutting the cord (and not missing a beat) come true. I just need to get up on the roof and test it. AND, if that works, it's snip, snip, for good!
Okay, so time for a reality check, because I realize that this might seem like a lot of work if you're not the technical type. Even with the addition of DirecTV Now, I will be saving $123 a month, or $1960 per year. Now, tell me you couldn't think of something else to do with that money? I know I can.
So stay tuned (pun intended) to see how this all plays out!
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