Is It Worth Cutting the Cord?
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Is it really worth cutting the cord? Learn from our experience and how it’s really easy to do.
For half of my life, I used an outside antenna for television. Oh, the stories I could tell you about trying to get coverage to show up without any snow in the picture. For the last 20 years, we have been using satellite to view television. The main reason we switched to Directv from an antenna was that they started the NFL Sunday ticket. We love our football and we couldn’t see our favorite teams locally.
Times change tastes change and we were ready for a change in how we view television.
It’s so much easier than ever now to find the best viewing solution for your budget. Here are the steps we took to find the best solution.
Why we are cutting the cord:
- Billing & Cost Issues – For over the past 20 years with Directv, we have watched the price of our billing slowly go up and up. I would have to call them one or two times a year to see if they were running any promotions to bring our bill down. The NFL Sunday Ticket has gone from $99 a year to about $400 a year!
- Weather Issues – When we moved to Florida, where it rains often, the picture would pixelate a lot and we would lose half of a show.
- Hardware Issues – The latest Directv hardware (Genie 2) that was given to us has never worked correctly and after waiting a year and a half for a fix, we realized this wasn’t going to happen. This was also confirmed by one of their own techs. Directv is also not putting any more satellites into space and that tells me they are moving toward streaming.
We were ready for a change!
doing some leg work:
After reading many articles, watching several videos, trying several streaming services, and talking to friends and neighbors who have cut the cord, this is what we learned.
- Cutting the Cord is Not for Everyone – I knew I was ready to take the next step, but my not-so-techy Mr. G would have to learn a whole new system. That’s where the free previews of the streaming services came in and helped him decide if it was for him before we actually cut the cord.
- Compare Streaming Services – We wanted certain channels that we didn’t want to compromise on. Local channels, sports channels, DIY channels, crime channels, etc. We tried all the available streaming services with free previews which had the channels we wanted. We did this over a few months period. Check out The Streamable to help you compare streaming services in your area. The picture above shows a breakdown of the most popular streaming services with local channels we tried.
- Good Internet Service – We learned very quickly that we needed to boost our internet service speed up and since we use Century Link, we already had the Price for Life service which means we have the same bill every month until we change it. We boosted our speed to 80 Mbps which made our bill go up $10 a month. Our modem was about 10 years old and we also needed to update it since it wasn’t sending out good WiFi service throughout the house. I did some research on fiber optics DSL routers and chose one by NetGear. We didn’t want to pay an extra monthly fee to CenturyLink to use one of theirs. It’s a good idea to check your internet service speed by going to Speedtest by Ookla. It’s best to be hard-wired from your computer to your service to check for a true speed. Using WiFi to check speed won’t be accurate.
- Streaming Devices – There are so many choices out there now for streaming devices or even smart tvs. We have been using Roku for several years now and decided to stay with that. We use the Roku Premiere HD for our bedroom and the Roku Ultra for our living room where we watch tv the most. I choose the Ultra because it has an ethernet port in the back to connect directly to our router since it’s in another room and we wanted the best streaming service.
did we make the right choice?
YES!!! It’s only been a few months but it was the right choice for us. We chose YouTubeTv mainly because of the unlimited DVR service, you can use multiple devices at the same time anywhere and the channel list is what we want, including local channels. We are also saving over $100 a month which we can put to much better use.
To be honest and transparent. There are some perks using DirecTv’s format, but saving so much money each month on a system that works, no contract, no extra fees and no extra hardware boxes sitting around is worth losing the perks. I have also contacted YouTubeTv via their Support to ask some general questions, and they answered super fast. I was very pleased with the customer service so far.
TIP: When you are leaving a cable or satellite company, be sure to call them and see if you are under a contract. If you leave before your contract is up, there are some hefty fines to pay for that.
We also have Netflix and Amazon Prime that we have been using for several years now to round out our streaming service.
I hope this will help you with your decision to cut the cord.
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I’m just a country girl loving my geeky life with my wonderful husband, always taking pictures, getting my hands dirty in the garden, being crafty, exploring with travels and enjoying all this on a budget. But above all, living my faith as a child of God!
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I might at some point. Right now we still have cable, but if they don’t honor a lower price when the current promotion ends, I’ll say goodbye. We do have 3 streaming services so we’ll still have things to watch.
I know what you mean about honoring the price in a year. I have had to call Directv for several years now, once a year and ask for promotion price. They would give it to me but each year the all-around price would go up about $10. We really got tired of playing the cat and mouse game with them.
Good luck! We still watch a lot of “live” TV and while we don’t have a traditional ariel plugged in we do still have a sky dish and I can’t see us getting rid of it anytime soon.
Can you believe I’ve never had cable or satellite TV? A couple of years ago I finally subscribed to Netflix but other than that we rent Redbox movies. Works for us!
My family cut the cord a couple of years ago. I agree that it’s not for everyone though.
Every time we try to cancel cable the company always tells us it’s cheaper to get the whole package-cable internet and phone line, rather than just having internet. But I would rather just having streaming services.
We did cut the cord a year ago, can’t find it useful since Smart TV is very useful.
We did the exact same thing AND chose the exact same thing! How funny is that? I have a few other apps I love, Frndly and Disney + I got a deal where I got both for $5 a month for 2 years. Now I have the Hallmark channel!
I lived for years and years without cable tv. We have it now, but it would be easy to get rid of it again. Most of what we watch is one one of the streaming services.
I’ve been wanting to cut our cable subscription because we rarely use it. We like local shows and use Netflix for movies.
This really caught my attention. I might discuss this with my husband and see if cutting the cord will suit us, too. Thanks for sharing!
Try the Free previews. They really make a difference in your decision.
Hope you will do an update periodically. We are still knee deep in cable bills but have been using Roku to keep from having a cable box in each room where there is a TV. But I hate paying that bill every month. Good luck with this big move. Hope it works well for you.
I actually haven’t owned a TV in more than 5 years. Going to the movies and watching and streaming what I want on Amazon or Youtube works for me. These are helpful tips for those thinking about cutting the cord though!
I am in the process of cutting the cord. Like you, I saw my monthly DirecTV bill increase every year, even with loyalty promotions. I had to call them to negotiate a new price each year. Last Fall, DirecTV gave me a $25 off per month promotion, but when my current contract expired and I got my new monthly bill, the bill had doubled and there was no promotional price. I called about it and was told by the agent she could see the record where a DirecTV agent had made the deal with me, but did not know why it was not implemented. Then she said she was sorry, but she could not activate that deal; my new monthly rate would remain at the higher rate. She did give me a promotion on other services offered by the same company, but I am finished with DirecTV as soon as I can get all of my cord cutting services in place, beginning with Roku.
Thanks for stopping by. Seems you are going through the same process we went through for several years. Its been so worth it to cut the cable. I just sent back all their equipment with no issues. Directv sent a box large enough to hold all the equipment with a prepaid label on it. Just dropped it off at the USPS. I hope it works out for you.