The following is a guest post by Rose of Rose Knows Coupons.
I’ve had it with the cable bill. $60 + a month for a service we barely use is such a waste of money. That amounts to $720 a year! I can find much better things to do with $720 a year!
Now I know I’m a little late with “this new fangled tacknology” as my friend Bobby so graciously pointed out – but I’ll admit, in the past it’s been easier to pay the cable bill than it was to figure out cheaper alternatives.
So the other day we signed up for Netflix. The first month is free and we selected the $7.99 per month option that offers instant unlimited viewing. Now for a deal grabber like myself, I can’t just go to Netflix.com and sign up. I knew there was going to be some sort of reward offered for signing up through another site. The best rewards I found were My Points and Ebates.
My Points offered 2,000 points when you become a paying subscriber. And Ebates offered $8 cash back. I went with My Points because 2,000 points will get me at least a $10 gift card when I redeem my points.
Now that we have Netflix we can stream through our Xbox 360 which is connected to the basement TV, laptops and desktops. But that leaves us with the living room TV where the kids usually watch television. Thankfully, my kids do not sit in front of the TV for hours on end. They can do with out the TV shows that are on and the kid shows are mostly offered on Netflix anyways.
To solve the living room TV issue we decided to go with the Roku. The Roku is a little box that allows you to instantly stream your Netflix service on your TV. The Roku also streams Hulu Plus, Pandora and Amazon VOD (which is pretty sweet because I have Amazon VOD credit!). Roku prices start at around $59.99. And that $59.99 is a one-time fee, not every month like cable! Ebates offers $3.50 cash back on Roku.
If we start to miss TV shows we can also sign up for Hulu Plus which runs about $8 per month. Basic Hulu is FREE and has a HUGE database of shows and movies! Hulu Plus offers current TV shows after they air.
All in all we will be saving about $52 per month. I say “about” because the tax on my Charter bill is $22. I’m waiting to see what tax we will be charged now that we don’t pay $60 for cable. For the first year we will save $564 because of the cost of the Roku, but after that our cost per year is $96 to watch TV and movies. If we decide to go with Hulu Plus at $8 per month we will be paying $192 per year, saving us $528 per year! SWEET!!
@Lisa if you have internet from comcast or at&t or many many other service providers you get free streaming to ESPN 3… there is a faq about what service providers you need to get access to the site… i watch live football games during football season on here when they are not shown on antenna tv channels…. http://espn.go.com/espn3/faq
@Felicia I think the problem for me is probably going to be the fact that all of our computers are pretty old school (like over 8 years old) and his football games are not limited to just one team…He wants to watch EVERY NFL game (we DVR a lot!) and he watches 3 teams religiously with college…Plus none of the 3 teams are local to the state we live in. *sigh* I wish I could cut this darn Directv bill! We pay way toooo much. 🙁
Really liking these types on articles on your blog! The produce one was good too. Thanks for more info like this 🙂
@ Lisa you can usually find a way online to stream the game from a local news station or other outlet. Ask a sports nerd for a good link?
We ditched the cable years ago, and love it. We are very lucky in that our local library has a large collection of brilliant and thought provoking DVDs. You can check out up to 6 per patron per week!! I have really gotten an education from all the great documentaries they have exposed me to. Also, we have found out through getting cable internet (very cheap for basic service) that you can get basic for ten dollars if you ask for it. In this market that includes 80 channels, including locals and PBS, Disney, Nick MTV, E, Comedy Central and a lot more.
This sounds awesome, does anyone have a way to do this that we can still see the football games? My husband gets NFL ticket and would absolutely NOT be willing to give it up. Also, we watch a good bit of college football too. And a few other sports. So, any ideas?