This year will mark six years since my wife and I took the jump and became cord cutters. So I would like to take a moment to dive into why I became a cord cutter and what I have learned over the last six years.
Right now with all the different tricks and tips we are saving over $12,000 on our home entertainment. Here is how we got started and how we are saving that money.
First, Why I Became a Cord Cutter
About six years ago my wife and I sat down to go over our bills. We had some credit card debt and a car payment and a newborn to think about. So we decided to see what we could do to pay off our debt as quickly as possible.
We started by looking at cutting down on eating out and spending and other ways to save money like maybe picking up a side job, but we quickly realized our DIRECTV bill was the biggest way we could quickly save money on our monthly bills.
At the time we paid over $112 a month just for TV. (We had DSL internet that was separate from DIRECTV.) We also already had Netflix and Amazon Prime on top of the DIRECTV subscription. So not only did we pay $1,344 a year to DIRECTV, we also paid $99 to Amazon and $108 to Netflix (under the old pricing) for a grand total of $1,551 a year.
What made it even more painful is we quickly realized that we rarely watched shows live and typically watched them a few days later on our DVR. We quickly decided the entertainment we got was not worth $1,551 a year.
So after some looking around, I discovered most of the shows we watched could be found on Hulu for an extra $8 a month. For the two shows not on Hulu that we wanted we discovered we could pay about $20 a year to watch them by buying a season pass on Amazon.
I found a used Roku HD on eBay for the bedroom and used our PS3 in our living room to stream. (We replaced the PS3 with a Roku 2 a few months later that we got as a Christmas gift.)
That was a huge savings! However, this was back when cord cutting was not as easy as it is today. Six years ago there was no Sling TV, PlayStation Vue, etc. Becoming a cord cutter meant giving up access to cable channels.
Now it is far easier to become a cord cutter with new live TV streaming services that are on the market. Yet what we found is our new lineup of Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon offered so much content that quickly replaced any desire for cable TV.
Note: Before I tell you what I use now at home let me remind you that for work in the office I have every streaming player from Roku made in the last six years and every version of the Fire TV, Chromecast, Nvidia Shield, and the Apple TV 4th Generation along with every live TV streaming service, and I have tried many other streaming services.
Here Is What I Use Now
Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime (great for shipping and the videos/music are a huge bonus)
In the past for college football season, I used Sling TV or PlayStation Vue. This year I may give Hulu and YouTube TV a shot to see how they hold up as streaming services for sports fans. Add in an antenna and my Tablo DVR and you have my cord cutting setup.
To watch TV I recently upgraded to the new TCL Roku TVs for the bedroom and living room. I love having everything built in with no wires. I also appreciate how their sleep timer automatically shuts off what is streaming to help cut back on any data overages when we had a data cap.
I still save a ton of money. From having to have a two-year contract to pay $112 a month I now pay $25 to $35 a month six months a year for a live TV streaming service. The best part is I get all the same sports channels I would with cable TV.
So that is how I became a cord cutter and what I currently use.
Money Saved
After saving $112 a month on cable TV we quickly looked at a long list of products we had been overpaying for including cellphones and home internet. We started to save over $2,000 a year by cutting our overspending on entertainment. If you want to see how we saved $2,000+ a year, you can find a full break down HERE.
What is your cord cutting story? Leave us a comment and let us know.
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