Even the most sound
of theories must pass the test of application and sometimes you must learn to
live with the results.
It was April of this
year when I decided to reevaluate how we allocate our money toward our static
bills. I had been for years paying
Verizon $24 per month for telephone service just to support our internet use
that was an additional $27 per month for a service that could not nearly keep
up with the quickly increasing number of web enabled devices in our home. I made the decision to drop both services and
change over to Comcast Xfinity. The
total amount paid is nearly the same and I increased my wifi capacity more than
five fold……a win!
This success made me
even more brazen as I looked at my Direct TV bill of $114 per month and asked
myself if I truly value television to the tune of $1,368 per year. That’s a no frills deal with zero
subscriptions, though I was paying $36 per month for my Genie HD DVR system to
three TVs. I could afford the payment
but I resented paying it in a way I could afford $9 for a McDonald’s burger but
I won’t pay it. That’s when I started reading
up on the cord cutters and how much there is to be saved with streaming
services…..and I wanted in. The plan I
came to was as follows:
WWE NETWORK & AMAZON PRIME
(already paying)
WWE - $10 monthly = $120 annual
Amazon Prime = $100 annual
STREAMING OPTIONS
SlingTV with bonus sports - $25 monthly = $300 annual
HuluPlus - $8 monthly = $96 annual
Netflix - $9 monthly = $108 annual
One time purchase
– 1 Fire TV stick, 3 Fire TVs = $340
DIRECT TV – 113.49 monthly = 1,361.88 annual
STREAMING – 42.00 monthly = 504.00 annual
TOTAL SAVINGS -
$71.49 monthly = $857.88 annual
Easy enough, right? Saving $857.88 a year and I still get to see
about 85% of what our family is accustomed to watching…..just not the same day
or always in HD and I can’t record anything but for that kind of savings I was
game. Take away the creature comforts
and you’ll realize you don’t need them.
Season finales had come and gone when I made the changeover so we had a
Summer to test drive the idea. I
purchased three Amazon Fire TV boxes ($100/ea) for the living room, bedroom and
my oldest son’s room and one Fire TV Stick ($40) for a playroom shared by all
three of my boys age 9,4 & 4. I am
very pleased with the Amazon Fire TV products and continue to use them to run
all of our streaming apps. Point of caution….spend
the extra money on the box vs. the stick as the performance quality is night
and day. All in all it sounds like my
cost cutting plan was working out great.
My only early gripe (that I knew going in to things) was giving up the
YES Network and all of my Yankee games.
I spent $20 for a season long MLB Radio subscription. We then also added a $10/mo local channels
subscription to our Comcast service so we could watch network shows when they
aired in the fall and to watch our local news.
In total I had now spent $360 on additional equipment and subscription
and an extra $10/mo to enjoy a portion of my previous TV entertainment…..roughly
half of my initial anticipated annual savings.
Still, in the long run I was excited at the future savings as I settled
into the streaming life.
Early on things were
going along better than anticipated.
Between my Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu subscriptions my twin 4 year
olds programming needs were exceeded and they are the toughest customers in the
house. It was also early on that the one
(literal) glitch began to present itself…Sling.
Sling TV was the service that clinched my decision to move to streaming
and ultimately it is the reason I am returning to a traditional TV service. This service is a terrific concept that just
isn’t ready for my business yet. When it
works, it’s great. Picture quality is in
perfect HD and the channels I got for $25 suited my needs just fine….when it
worked. This is a very glitchy service
and the issue was not on my end as we run HBO.GO, Amazon Prime, WWE Network, Crackle,
Netflix and Hulu with almost zero interruption.
When you’re marketing a live TV service, freezing picture, buffering and
having to stare at a blank screen with a yellow spinning disc is a big
issue. We continued along with the
service but as summer drew to a close and the fall programming began to return
we immediately began to realize the value we had before vs. the economy plan we
went for.
My wife and I defer
to the boys for programming up to their bed times and when we have that bit of
quiet and can unwind with a show it’s actually a big deal for us. We sat down to watch the season premiere of
The Goldbergs last week and in the first scene of the show one of the twins
started yelling down to us for potty help.
Happens all the time….only now there is no pause button….we aren’t
recording the show to start watching after they settle in. One of us (me) had to leave the room and miss
the show right up to the first commercial break.
What my wife said next was the death blow to
the cord cutting project…..”ya know, Blacklist and Walking Dead are back soon…..this
is going to happen again”.
Is TV THAT
big of a deal? No. I’ll say this though….when
you’ve been married a dozen years, you’ve been parenting for a decade, you
never go anywhere or have any friends to hang out with, that hour or so to sit
down with another adult, watch a show you both enjoy to help you unwind from
your day is a pretty valuable experience and worth a few more bucks to enhance it.
When it’s all said and done regaining the ability to pause and record TV
with a terabyte of storage to watch when you’re able, to get all my Yankees
games back and as a perk get Sunday Ticket Max for the season and the premium
channels for 3 months is well worth every penny of the special intro rate of a $62/mo bill for
the first year.
Next October when that bill becomes $109 I will have to read this to
remind myself that while I don’t like paying so much to watch TV, that’s not
what I’m paying for.
Cord cutting and
cafeteria TV subscriptions are the future…..I’m just not there yet.
