How to Give Up Cable, Get the Channels You Want, and Pay Less!!
- mirandatamaska
- Oct 9, 2018
- 5 min read
There are so many different options now when it comes to watching TV that cable almost seems a little 20th century. Remember when we all cut the chord on our landlines and now home phones are almost non existent? Yeah, I think cable is next to become a thing of the past !
Probably much like your family, we rarely had the time to sit down and actually watch live television. If we did it was normally something for the kids after school or a sporting event. Most television was watched "recorded" when were able to find the time. Even though, we continued to spend $185 every single month! Add in couple movies every month and we were close to spending close to $200. Every time I would call and try to negotiate our monthly bill, I was told there was nothing could be done. I did have the option to only have local channels, but I would still be paying over $100 and the channels we did watch and record from would become non existent.
I looked into other options for a while and realized there weren't many options in our area. Our HOA doesn't allow a satellite dish so we couldn't go that route either. Online streaming seemed to be the best option for us.
There are a ton of online streaming options out there! In fact almost every single local channel has an app you can stream from. If you do some research you may find better options for your family, but here I am sharing with you what we have done and works best for us!
The most common question I get when I tell people we have given up cable is "What do you do for sports?" I will definitely cover that as well! I know some husbands refuse to give up certain sports channels regardless of the price tag.
Here is what we did to give up cable, get the channels we wanted, and pay less money each month!
Wifi is a must for us since I work from home and our kid's devices only work when using wifi. Our original cable was through Xfinity and for us to switch to just a wifi package they couldn't (or wouldn't) give us a discounted plan. In order to get the best rate on wifi from Xfinity we needed to be a new customer. I cancelled my husband's account and signed up for a new account under my name. There are a few options when it comes to choosing wifi. Obviously the more data you want the more expensive it will be. I decided to start with the cheapest plan (which was only $39.99 for the first 3 months) just to see how much we were using and if we could squeak by. I was told me I could increase the package at anytime, plus they would give us 2 "grace" months so if we did happen to go over our usage, they wouldn't charge us. It's been 9 months and we have gone over one time. There are 4 cell phones in our house, 1 iPad, and 3 televisions. Occasionally we will all be online on our phones at the same time, but other than that we never run everything at once. During the day, I'm the only one using the wifi, unless Hollis is streaming a movie or TV show.
If you do happen to get close to your data limit, you will get an email letting you know. From that email you can access your account and increase your data plan if you wish. I have gotten these a few times towards the end of the month, but we've always been able to get by without going over.
Hulu is pretty awesome. You can watch just about anything that airs on cable television on replay the day after it airs live. Since we rarely are able to sit down and watch anything live, Hulu was a no brainer for us. There is also a LIVE option for some channels including local channels in some cities. We can access all the Disney channels live, which is great for the kids. When signing up for Hulu Live it will ask you your location and tell you which channels stream live so you can make your decision then if it will work for your family. Everything but movie rentals is included in that $39.99 monthly fee.
We do the basic package for Netflix. We could probably do without this, because it doesn't get watched every single day, but it does offer some television viewing options now that are just too good to pass up (Stranger Things and FRIENDS for example). Netflix also has a few movies that Hollis just loves (Cars 3, Trolls, Sing) that we would have to rent on Hulu. Another great thing about NETFLIX is they are constantly changing what is available and often times show classic movies and TV shows that you would have forgotten about was it not for NETFLIX.
For some families this is usually where the conversation stops when it comes to getting rid of cable! If you are a sports lover, cutting the chord may be a deal breaker! But there are a lot of options, you just have to be willing to find them. We are a football family, so I can't speak much beyond football, but I know the options are out there for basketball, hockey, golf, soccer, tennis.... the list goes on! Hulu does have Live streaming options for NFL Network, ESPN, and SEC Network, but you won't have access to channels like NFL RED ZONE which allows you to watch multiple games at once streaming from Hulu. Once again, Hulu offers Live streaming of local channels in some cities, so we always get to watch our local team play. Our home team though is the Atlanta Falcons so if the game isn't showing live on any of the channels we have access to, we have to sometimes find ways to watch the game if it isn't being shown on a network channel we have access to. I'll be honest though, this was an issue for us when we had cable to though. You can still easily google ways to stream the game live and sometimes find an alternative option. Yes, we have missed a few Falcons games, but we have also lived to tell the tale!
Right now we are paying right at $100 month and saving over $80 by getting rid of cable. I'm always looking for ways to save money on our monthly bills and by finding an alternative that works for us and where no one is complaining is a win for us! Hopefully this helped give you some options that will work for your family as well!
