Thinking about cutting my cable and saving $100/month. Are you still paying for cable and if not, what streaming services (if any) do you subscribe to?
Thinking about cutting my cable and saving $100/month. Are you still paying for cable and if not, what streaming services (if any) do you subscribe to?
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cutting-the-cord-tips-and-tricks-to-do-it-right/
Lots of discussion in that thread if you want some more input.
I cut mine in 2015. I have saved the equivalent of a couple Stern Pro's in that time...and I don't miss it a bit.
Cable for foreseeable future. I use some streaming services which is nice but they don't all have what it takes to make me put cable down.
Besides the obvious content issue, they need to evolve more with interface and resolution to really pull me over.
I am doing youtube TV and I really like its infinite DVR + local channels. Way better than an actual cord and I can watch it on any tv in my house.
Quoted from marioparty34:Are you still paying for cable
Still paying. Also have a bunch of add-on streaming, but I watch too much sports to lose cable, and it's worth it to not have to answer the "where do I find [xxxxx]" questions from my girlfriend.
I remember my parents cutting the cable (except for the standard 12 basic channels) in 2005. Didn't miss it one bit. Haven't been much of a TV watcher since, but we did recently get YouTube TV as a family. $65 I think or something like that that all 4 members of our family split. Good racket.
I never had cable or satellite growing up, so I just simply never got it when I moved out. A Netflix subscription is all I have needed thus far.
Cable companies that also offer Internet are now putting limits on data usage or charging more for unlimited data to make up for the losses in tv services.
I've thought about cutting for a while, but college football keeps getting in the way.
After adding streaming and sports, I'd only save about $25, so the convenience of a single interface is worth it to me.
But if we ever get a good 5G signal at my house, I'll rethink everything.
I have not had cable TV for 20+ years. An antenna in the attic gets the job done. Not sure where the 20K saved is though.
If you don't need sports I would strongly suggest the following strategy:
All these major streaming services have there own shows that come out periodically, some of which are absolutely fantastic, but in order to watch all of them you would have to have 6 seperate streaming services right? WRONG! Sign up for the services one after the other, and use a gift card to sign up for the service. They sell them at Best Buy, but you can also buy them through Paypal. That way you have a fixed cost and don't have to subscribe to anything.
Amazon Prime: (well... this one is a fixed fee for the year but you likely have it anyways)- Man in the high castle, the Expanse
Disney +: The Mandalorian, all Marvel Movies
Hulu: South Park
Netflix: Breaking Bad, The Crown, The Office
HBO Max: Game of Thrones, West World
CBS All Access: New Star Trek
If you follow this model, you can try out all these great shows for 6 months for less than the price you are paying for a month of cable right now. You will be able to try them all out without subscribing to anything.
If you really want cable, you can get "streaming cable" through AT&T go for less.
Bear in mind you will need decent internet (10Mbs +) to make this worth it.
I would also highly suggest a "ROKU" box.
We cut cable tv in 2009 and haven't missed it at all. In fact, when we moved in 2016 and had to transfer our internet service, the tech gave us "wink / nudge" free basic cable and... we've used it twice (once to verify "did he really give us free cable?" which ultimately reminded us why we cut it. We finally used it last year to catch new Rick&Morty eps as they aired. And then... meh).
In all that time we only paid for Netflix, which was sufficient. Amazon Video came "free" with our Prime account and fills some gaps. Between those two is more than enough we could never hope to watch. My dad later gifted us a Disney+ subscription, and access to one of his spare HBO accounts... we use them maybe an hour a week at most so we would never pay for them.
The worrisome aspect is, cable-cutting used to be a great way to save money and mostly still is. But the golden days of streaming are officially over and have been for a while. Used to be a handful of services had almost anything you wanted. Now every stupid channel or network wants you to pay for its own service:
- CBS
- NBC
- HBO
- Disney
- Discovery
- Hulu
- Netflix
- Amazon
- YouTube premium or whatever
- etc etc etc
Each of them baits with "exclusives" but if you do that, you're paying more than cable in a hurry.
Are there things we "miss" by not paying for this or that service? Absolutely. But there are only so many hours in a day, with only so many of them "free", yet there is SO MUCH EFFING FREE CONTENT out there that we will NEVER have hope to catch up on! So for us, it's stupid to pay for more than a couple services, and in the end we save money while not really "missing" anything at all because there's always something somewhere to fill the time.
Now, having said all of that, it helps that we could not care less about sports. If you're a sports nut, the cable networks have you by the balls. Good luck!
I have only had basic cable for a few years now with no premium channels. My internet and cable come as a package. It's nearly as expensive to have just the high speed internet without the cable, so I leave it as is. I hardly watch tv, though. I'm surprised to hear others are still able to save money by having just internet. I'm guessing that model won't last much longer.
I cut the cord about 8 years ago and don't regret it at all.
Now, I have subscriptions Netflix, DVD.com and Hulu, as well as a digital antenna for local broadcasts. It's currently about $30 per month, as opposed to $90 for DirecTV and $115 for the cable I had before that.
I'm tempted to add Disney+, but I agree with goingincirclez above - all those subscriptions are basically cable with extra steps.
Quoted from goingincirclez:Each of them baits with "exclusives" but if you do that, you're paying more than cable in a hurry.
You could always rotate between the providers. Subscribe for a couple months, cancel, move on to another service, and repeat. You don't necessarily have to subscribe to all of them all at once.
Cut it 2 years ago. I miss Monday Night Football, and occasionally 24/7 news channels -- it's really not much to give up for the price.
Wish I had cut it sooner.
-mof
Quoted from mof:Cut it 2 years ago. I miss Monday Night Football, and occasionally 24/7 news channels -- it's really not much to give up for the price.
Wish I had cut it sooner.
-mof
One workaround for the news channels is that they're all simulcast on SiriusXM, so if you subscribe to that you can listen to them, even in the car, which is all you really need.
Quoted from westofrome:news channels
I mean web is good enough in general, sometimes I want to hear the hot takes from the talking heads for 30 minutes -- in the heat of the moment though. You don't quite get that on the web. 99% of the time, you don't need to hear their takes -- and headlines suffice.
-mof
Funny thing.
When I was a kid, we had an antenna on a tower with a rotor.
Our channels were: 3, 6, and 10. On UHF we got a few more: 17, 29, 39, 48.
There was always something to watch.
Now we have a Firestick. Literally thousands of choices!
And we can never find anything to watch.
Quoted from TopMoose:I cut the cord about 8 years ago and don't regret it at all.
Now, I have subscriptions Netflix, DVD.com and Hulu, as well as a digital antenna for local broadcasts. It's currently about $30 per month, as opposed to $90 for DirecTV and $115 for the cable I had before that.
I'm tempted to add Disney+, but I agree with goingincirclez above - all those subscriptions are basically cable with extra steps.
Unless you are a huge star wars fan or have kids there isn't much on Disney right now. This time next year there should be a ton more original content. Disney also allows up to 4 to share an account. So maybe you have a friend or family member you can piggy back on
Quoted from electricsquirrel:Funny thing.
When I was a kid, we had an antenna on a tower with a rotor.
Our channels were: 3, 6, and 10. On UHF we got a few more: 17, 29, 39, 48.
There was always something to watch.
Now we have a Firestick. Literally thousands of choices!
And we can never find anything to watch.
So many fewer channels made it very competitive on what TV shows were made. Now with 100s of channels, everything gets a show. Film yourself running around in the woods screaming for bigfoot and you'd get a TV deal
Quoted from captainadam_21:Disney also allows up to 4 to share an account. So maybe you have a friend or family member you can piggy back on
Piggy backing is the key. Splitting CBS, Hulu, Disney, & Netflix now.
Quoted from ForceFlow:You could always rotate between the providers. Subscribe for a couple months, cancel, move on to another service, and repeat. You don't necessarily have to subscribe to all of them all at once.
That's certainly a viable playbook, and if I were committed to marathoning whatever show of interest in whatever short time, I'd probably do that.
Frankly though, I'm surprised that's still even an option! I won't be at all surprised when these streaming services require a minimum subscription fee/term, making round-robin short-term account "savings" another "good ol days" concept.
Quoted from captainadam_21:The only thing I missed was nfl Sunday ticket. Cleveland browns fan living in South Dakota
$86/year gets you the Student streaming version (limited to 1 stream at a time.)
Quoted from mof:PS: In the poll, I think you meant 21st century, not 20th, but -- who knows?
-mof
I did mean the 20th century (1901-2000), it was an attempt to capture those pinsiders who thought cable was archaic and so last century...thus the second sentence of "I cut it a long time ago".
Quoted from goingincirclez:Frankly though, I'm surprised that's still even an option! I won't be at all surprised when these streaming services require a minimum subscription fee/term, making round-robin short-term account "savings" another "good ol days" concept.
There's probably not enough people taking advantage of it yet. I'm sure once it gets to be a problem, they'll start closing it off. Most people probably just end up subscribing and never cancel even if they stop using the service. That's just what tends to happen with auto-pay subscription services.
Quoted from marioparty34:what streaming services (if any) do you subscribe to?
Amazon Prime
Netflix
Vidgo ($10 a month for first two months, then I'm cancelling)
Disney+ (free until later this year)
Hulu (free until later in the spring)
Discovery+ (free for the next 6 months)
CBS All Access (I'm keeping this until UEFA Champions League is over this spring, got 50% off my first two months)
ESPN+ (decided to do the annual plan since I like to watch soccer, NHL, MLB, UFC, NFL Primetime and the 30 for 30 library - will switch to the Disney+ bundle later this year - comes out to about $5/month currently)
On top of that I have OTA antenna with Tablo DVR for local channels.
Plex Media server for movies, TV and music.
I also use the ad-supported services like PlutoTV, Roku Channel and News On. And a ton of stuff I haven't gotten to yet in my YouTube playlists.
I only subscribe to a live TV streaming service for college bowl season which is why I currently have Vidgo. I then cancel after the National Championship Game.
Everybody tastes and needs are different. If you're looking for a live streaming service, checkout suppose.tv where you can punch in your favorite channels and it'll recommend different services.
In any event, just about any service out there offers a free trial so that you can test drive each service and judge for yourself.
Cable is actually pretty bad ass in 2021. I can stream just about all the major networks, can use their apps with my cable subscription, watch it on my phone, tablet, laptop, Apple TV, etc... on demand shows, live tv, all the major networks and sports. I dig it - great for a family of 5.
EDIT: no cable box required.
I had sling but now have FUBO cause they have my SF giants and Sactown Kings games. Only draw back is they didn't have espn but they just picked it up.
If you want to go completely off, get an over the air antenna and a 4 channel HD HomeRun tuner, set up Plex on device of your choice and enjoy. Full DVR capability, commercial delete/skip, multi-room viewing, etc. I get ~40 local channels in Austin and then supplement with free services like Pluto and Roku channel. Wife picked up Netflix and Disney +. We haven't missed cable except on the rare occasion something is on ESPN (which you can also get for a small fee I think). The initial investment (assuming you already have a NAS or computer than can run Plex) will be no more than what you paid for 2 months of cable. Put a Roku on each TV and the experience is exactly the same on every TV in the house, so easy for your wife or kids. Highly recommended.
Dropped cable and internet 2+ years ago. I moved and my location doesn't have any service. Use my phone as a hot spot if needed. I like not having that bill
I dropped my cable package a few years ago after prices continued to rise. Now, I only have Internet - Netflix, amazon, Hulu, Disney+ is all we need.
I'm still at my introductory rate for cable another month or two. Now that Discovery plus is available that was the last piece of the puzzle for me to be able to cut cable and just have internet.
Quoted from Coz:I dropped my cable package a few years ago after prices continued to rise. Now, I only have Internet - Netflix, amazon, Hulu, Disney+ is all we need.
I don’t need any of this stuff....except this ashtray, and this paddle game, and that’s all i need, and the remote control. But that’s all I need....and this chair, but that’s all I need
1906D28D-59F1-455D-9FC9-F1256F211965.gifSantaEatsCheese netflix lost The Office rights on Jan 1. It will now be on nbc. Tremendous write up on everything
Late to the cord cutting party but finally cancelled my cable - Verizon is coming Jan 20th to upgrade Fios internet from 75M to 1G and dropping the TV and 3 boxes altogether - was paying $235 monthly, new bill will be $80. Not planning on adding any TV service if it has commercials, we do pay for Prime, Netflix, Hulu and use a shared HBO account
Also shout-out to mcluvin who piqued my interest when he mentioned using a home network Pi-Hole adblocker. Literally may be the best thing I did for myself in 2020 as it filters out much of the nonsense the internet has become. Raspberry Pi kit was $70 on Amazon and only took about an hour or so to set it up using various YouTube videos.
It's very interesting to see how different website have commercialized, on Pinside I get zero blocked queries but if I go to a site like CNN it blocks 60+ ads and trackers per page
Quoted from VectorGamer:Discovery+ (free for the next 6 months)
How? I only see a free week for new subscribers and possibly a free year for Verizon (which I am not).
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