July 25, 2015

TechTalk: How To Get Rid of Your Cable And Dish For Good - Survive It and Save Tons of Money!



With the rising cost of cable TV and satellite dishes, I'm sure the sound of saving thousands of dollars sounds very appealing to you right now. As to date, we have saved approximately $3,312 derived from a $69/month subscription fee in the course of 4 years. Money that went to more important stuffs like food and other essential necessities. How did we pull this off?

We simply gave up our satellite dish - our money whore. Do you have one of these suckers? For us, there was no sense keeping it since we don't watch a lot of TV shows nor pay-per-view movies. If there was anything essential having it at that time, it would only be during football season - which we can pretty much watch through other means. As it is, we were losing more money than getting any benefit keeping the dish. So, we sent the dish back to outer space and bid it adieu forever!

Here are the options that we utilized to get us digitally entertained and saved us money:

1. Roku TV and Media Player: I would say, we are pioneers of this device since we started with the very first generation of Roku. We love how it works, so we stuck with it. With that, we have evolved with the device. We currently upgraded our device from Roku 2 to Roku 3 to integrate with our new HDTV. So far, we have 2 working devices in our home to provide us endless entertainment whenever we want to. The best thing about it? It only costs us a one time fee of $99.00 to buy the new device. That's it. Seamless transition.

We also love the fact that most TV shows now have apps where you can stream their current shows for free like PBS, History Channel and more.

2.  Netflix Streaming and DVD Combo - Netflix is the bomb of all entertainment. I'm sure a lot of satisfied users will agree. I will not reiterate more how good this service is to us, but what I'll say is that, it's our top entertainment center for the family. No commercials. No interruptions. And most of the TV shows and movies we are interested in gets updated in their cue fast enough for us to watch, without feeling the lag. They are good that way, that we sometimes wait until a movie becomes available on Netflix - if we missed it at the theater or don't feel like it's worth the money to watch it at the theater. Options are endless. Our monthly subscription fee for both streaming and DVD is $7.99 each, $15.98/month and $191.76 for a year. That's a saving of $636.24 every year against the cost of having the dish.

Now, if you want to watch local news and local tv programming, one best option is to invest in a good...

3. HDTV with built-in Tuner and a good HDTV Flat Antenna - This is a lifesaver for me because I love to watch local news. And the antenna is so easy to install and works immediately. We got ours at Amazon for $17.99. And the TV, it will all depend on your preferred size and make and how much you are willing to spend on a good TV. All I'll say to you is, it will be worth it.

If you have an older TV without the tuner, like we used to have, and couldn't afford to buy a new one yet, you can invest in this nifty device...

4. Simple TV - This truly worked wonders for me at that time we were using our old TV. It acted as the TV's tuner and works alongside the Roku Player as an app, on the iPad or smartphone. You can basically watch live TV online wherever you are. We had the first generation device which unfortunately, doesn't work anymore. But they have updated devices that cost a lot more now. The new basic device is now $199.99 + purchase price of your preferred HDTV Antenna. I'd say, it's a good option for the short term until you can buy that awesome 65' TV!

Now if you're one of those that like to watch your favorite shows on YouTube, have a Netflix account but no media device player and are cramped with the small screen of your laptop, you can invest on getting yourself this cute but powerful device...

5. Chromecast - With the power of apps, you can cast your favorite shows straight to your TV screen from your laptop or smartphone! Best thing about it, it will only cost you $35.00!

If all else don't suit your taste, go online and watch full episodes of your favorite shows straight from the TV shows website. Totally free.

We've tried them all. 

And if you don't already know, your first step in most of these savings - except for number 3 - is to invest in a good internet service provider that can keep up with your entertainment needs. 

Other than that, choose which works best for you and you'll be on your way to saving big in no time. These worked for us and we're pretty happy with the result.


Happy saving and Happy watching!



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