Many people have decided to ditch their Cable and Satellite TV subscriptions and cut the cord. People have a number of reasons but one of the main goals is to save money. If saving money while still being able to watch your favorite programming is one of your objectives, this article will provide some information that you might find useful.

We cut the cord back in 2015 and have never looked back. If you are thinking about it or have already done it but are now wondering how to watch your favorite shows or how to get premium channels, movies, sports, etc. then this article should help.

If you haven’t already figured it out, I’m geek and have been since childhood. I’ve been figuring out how to make things work and how to watch TV for more than half a century. I was watching cable TV in my bedroom as a kid by running speaker wire from the main TV to my room connecting to the 75 ohm inputs where the antenna connected to an old black and white protable TV.

In the 1980’s, I started my own company installing the big satellite dishes for residential customers and providing local antennas for the still popular local news and sports. Eventually, I got out the TV programming business and into the tech industry but that’s how my technical curiosity was born.

Besides being a technical geek, I’m also a financial geek and love to save money so I often use these 2 geek aspects to figure out how to accomplish things technically to save the most money. In this article, I’ll share a few tips that could save you hundreds of dollars per year.

The earliest purpose built streaming devices were the Roku Box and Apple TV. Amazon Fire Stick came out a short time later. There are also ways to stream with your computer, game boxes, and other devices but for simplicity, we’re just going to focus on the 2 most affordable and most popular streaming technologies and that’s Roku and Amazon.

Before we get into the details, let’s talk about what you need and what you don’t

List of things you’ll need to get TV after cancelling your TV services. In the bullet points, I’m listing the Antenna as optional but for some folks, the streaming may be optional. It depends on what you intend to watch.

• High Speed Internet Service >25 megabit up to as fast as you can afford if you need it. (You’ll need to consider all Internet usage for all members of household, # of simultaneous TVs streaming, required resolution of HD streaming. (720p, 1080p, 4k, etc) the more TVs and the higher the resolution, the more data speed and data usage you will need to pay for.
  • For Example: Comcast usually caps their plans at 1TB of data usage per month and then they charge extra or cut you off.
  • We average only 2-3 hours of TV per day max, on a single TV at 720p and we have 3 adults using mobile devices and computers. We stay under 1/2 of our monthly limit. Heavier users at higher HD resolution will hit that data cap.
• HD TV Antenna – Optional (make sure to account for distance and line of sight)
  • Cable from antenna to TV should be RG-6. The same as the cable and satellite companies use. In many cases, you can use the existing cable in the house but you might have to remove their splitters and replace with the appropriate type (Satellite Splitters need to be replaced in almost all cases but cable company splitters may work ok). You may also need to use an amplifier depending on signal strength and length of cable run or if the antenna must have a splitter inserted to get to multiple TVs.
• Streaming Device – Roku or Amazon stick or box. You can purchase one of these devices for approximately $35 to $100. Be sure to get the minimum requirements needed to support the highest resolution on your TV. Also, make sure to select a device that supports WiFi if you don’t have a wired network connection near the TV(s) where the Roku or Amazon device(s) will be located. You will need one streaming device for each TV that will be used simultaneously. Note: you can move devices if you have multiple TVs but only watch one at a time. Also, some of the smart TVs already have a steaming device built-in so you don’t need to buy one if you have that in your TV.

First, to be a cord cutter, you’ll be getting rid of your cable service or your DSL TV service, or your Satellite TV service from Dish or DirectTV.

If you get your Internet Service through the same provider as your Television Programming Services, you’ll need to understand that you can’t cancel everything. You’ll still need Internet after the TV service is cancelled and you may also want to keep your phone line.

Far too often you’ll see comments on groups and forums where people give partial answers or ask questions that they don’t fully understand so it’s easy to be confused and think you’ll just get rid of your current service and stream TV with one of these magical devices. However, without Internet, you won’t be streaming anything.

** Some folks may have phone service provided in a bundle so if you need to keep your landline, please be aware of this and let the provider know not to cancel the phone service if you still need it. **

You don’t have to stay with the same provider but you’ll need to have some kind of Internet Connectivity for your WiFi devices that you normally use such as your computer, cell phones, tablets, gaming devices, smart home devices, etc. and now the internet will be the source of your TV programming as well. In addition to the Internet, you may also want to get local channels the old fashioned way, over the airwaves with an antenna.

HD Antennas can be purchased for about $100 for a decent one that will pull in signals from TV stations up to 60 miles away. If you are further away than that or have obstructions between you and the station, you may need to spend a bit more to get a better antenna, higher pole, etc. but if you are really close to the source of the signal, you might get by with modern day rabbit ears. Some folks can use even the the more powerful antennas from within their home or attic while others will install an antenna outside.

To determine what kind of antenna you might need, you could check with your neighbors that have already done this or go out to the internet and use a calculator site to determine the distance from your home to the local stations that you’ll want to watch. <<Link to TV Distance Calc>>

Some people may want to consider using their Cell Phone provider for Internet and TV streaming. While this is possible with some cell phone service providers in areas where data speed and connection is strong, be aware that unless you have an unlimited plan and fast data, you may either run out of data or not be able to stream at the best resolution for your TV. Many of those plans are designed to watch the streaming from the phone, not a TV. If your needs are light and you know what you’ve got available, this can be much cheaper than other solutions. However, it can also be expensive or limit your phone data when you need it away from home if you don’t have an unlimited plan.

Ok, so we’ve covered a lot of the technology and the options but we haven’t looked at the programming options yet. Let’s look at some of those. Then we’ll look at how to compare the streaming network providers to see how to get the programming you want at the best prices.

As I’m writing this, the most popular streaming services are pretty much universally available on all streaming devices. The paid subscription services that most consider getting one or more of are the following and each of these are available starting at around $10/mo and increasing to around $50/mo for live TV and standard cable TV channel options.

Not all Live-TV options are equal so it’s going to be necessary to identify what you watch before you choose. Some channels or shows are not available everywhere. Sports tends to be even more exclusive to certain providers. It’s possible to buy an entire season of a show you like on Amazon and others for around $20 or so depending on number of episodes in season. You will have to watch a day after they air but it will be commercial free. If you don’t watch a lot of programs from a specific network, this may be a cheaper option for getting the couple shows you do watch

• Amazon Prime – Annual Subscription provides Amazon shipping discounts plus original and exclusive programming. Additional one-off purchases of movies and current TV are available. Amazon has many older shows and movies.
• Netflix – Movies and TV programming, some original and some exclusive, many older shows as well.
• Hulu – Some exclusive programming, some current TV available free with lowest level subscription. Higher level subscription provides cable-like experience and live TV.
• YouTube – Typical YouTube videos are free but a subscription provides live TV options.
• Sling – Provides live TV options
• Direct Now
• CBS, ABC, NBC, have their own channels and subscriptions but much of their programming may be available elsewhere
• Google, Vudu, Roku, Amazon, Fandango, and others provide current TV and movie purchases but pricing and availability is pretty similar across them so we typically use Roku or Amazon for our add-on purchases.
  • The channels all have their own interfaces so you may like or get comfortable with the ones you use the most so you don’t necessarily have to use them all or even install the services you don’t need.

Just to give you an idea about how much we spend and how we consume programming, we spend about $50/mo total for TV watching, not including internet. We are spending about $115/mo for our Internet so a total of $165/mo. We have a 300 megabit download speed and a data cap of 1 terabyte with Comcast.

We don’t watch that much TV and very few current programs on traditional networks but we use the Internet for business and use the Internet quite a bit overall. The traditional network TV shows we watch are purchased through Amazon. We have an Amazon Prime subscription, Netflix, and a standard Hulu without commercials subscription. We don’t watch live TV and we don’t watch sports so no live option is required for us although we do have an HD antenna for live local news and weather when the situation warrants watching it.

Since we like to watch older British shows, we also have a Britbox subscription. We have a Roku device so all of the Roku and Fandango programming is included along with the apps for the subscriptions we watch. Roku has just about every type of programming represented from religious, to news, weather, NASA, food, animals, cartoons, and other types of special interest programming, much of which is free. Premium Movie channels, kids TV, etc. is all there too if you want to add it to any of the subscriptions you have.

To let you know how we calculate that $50 per month, we are taking the total we spend on all TV subscription services plus the amount we spend on purchasing individual shows or movies. The total dollar value spent for the year, divided by 12 months.

Many shows will end up on one of the free options when the next season begins so if you see old episodes available, you can be pretty sure that the current season will be there when next season gets started so you can save quite a bit if you don’t mind waiting and being a season behind.

Something else that you’ll discover is that many of the services have overlapping programming meaning that some shows are available in multiple places. Sometimes they are free on one and paid on another so you have to do your homework if maximizing your financial savings is high on your list of goals. You may even discover that you don’t need one or more services after you have them for a while. The good news is that it’s easy to add or cancel services and easy to add them back if you change your mind or something you watch or want to watch ends up on the canceled service.

Another tip to save money on programming on the premium add-on networks is to consider what you watch and wait until the season completes. Then take a trial subscription and watch that show daily (binge watch) until you finish the season. Once you watch that programming, you can cancel the trial subscription. You’ll either pay nothing at all or maybe a single month in fees, typically far less than the season purchase.

The way I started this process in 2015 was by making spreadsheet with all of the programming that we watch, the network the shows were on, the number of episodes per season, and where they could be watched after live shows finished for the season. (more recently, the prices have become pretty much identical across the service providers but early on, there were some differences. At this point, you can just pick your favorite source to make your purchases as the price won’t likely vary as it once did.)

The next thing I did was created a table (Spreadsheet) with all of the networks that were represented by my TV watching choices, Then I created a column for each of the live streaming services along with Amazon, Netflix, and Hulu, since their plans didn’t contain live programming. (this was before Hulu had a live option) As far as the live options, you could have Hulu, YouTube, Sling, and any other that you think has a good portion of things you watch.

Once you have your channel selection to the left and your comparison networks across the top, just place an ‘x’ in the box for each network that is represented in your vertical columns. If you have more than one that covers all of your networks or channels, just pick the one you like best or that saves you the most money. If some networks aren’t represented, then look at the number of shows that are affected and do the math for purchasing the seasons, then divide by 12 for a monthly cost comparison.

Something that might also be helpful is to put a number column next to your desired networks to represent the number of shows you watch on that channel or network. that will give you an idea of how important that channel is to your overall selection. We watch(ed) so few current shows that purchasing them separately and not buying a live TV plan was considerably cheaper than trying to get the networks represented by one of the plans and it also prevents the time wasting that goes along with having too many live channels to scroll through and watch more TV that you would have done otherwise.

At $35 to $55 per month for the plans that would have worked at the time, it wasn’t worth it to us and a few shows would still have been a separate purchase on top of the subscriptions. Again, if you watch a lot of live TV and sports, you’ll probably have to change your habits more than you might want to if you were to follow my plan but just look at the options and then decide what’s best for those in your household.

This article is still in progress and I’ll be adding some content, graphics and performing some editing but I wanted to get down some thoughts while they were bouncing around in my head after seeing and answering some questions in a local forum this week.

Check back for updates…