How we cut our TV bill by more than half

Yes, you read that right. We cut our TV bill by more than half last year. And, actually, we’re saving almost $110 a month. That’s $1,320 a year. Want to know how to do it? We’ll tell you.

First, it’s important for you to know how we got fed up with at&t. At the end of a contract period, they raised our rates for our TV services by $60 without sending us a notice that it was going to happen. They claimed that since it was on the second page of our bill in teeny tiny print, that we should’ve known it was coming. Since I don’t flip the bill over, I didn’t see it. When they refused to credit me the extra $60, I told them to go take a hike and cancelled the service. I’m sure that this story is pretty common in what used to be called the cable TV world, because we had a similar situation with DirecTV. 

Here’s what we were paying with at&t. Keep in mind, I had to have Amazon Prime for my blog and my teenager couldn’t live without Hulu and Netlix.

• at&t- $120 (this included box rentals and service charges.

• Amazon- $8.25 ($99 billed annually)

• Hulu- $11.99

• Netflix- $9.99

  • This is a grand total of $160 a month

Here’s how we cut our TV bill by more than half 

I knew that we could live without at&t for a lot of programming, as long as we were able to watch a day later on Hulu (which we were often doing because we DVR’ed everything). My main concern was local channels for weather and live sports. I immediately went on Amazon and bought a HDTV antenna with a 50 mile radius for under $30. Set up was simple and the picture amazing. Local problem solved. Here’s what the picture looks like on our TV with the antenna. It’s unedited and taken on my phone. Pretty great. 

Now, let’s talk about our next hardware solution. We ordered two Fire TV Sticks (one for downstairs and one for up). At the time, Amazon had a $25 promotion but they’re regularly $39.99. Why did we choose the Fire TV Stick over the Fire TV? We’re not gamers (if you are you’ll want one of the Fire TV models) and we wanted portability. The Fire TV Stick plugs right into a USB port on the TV and you can take it anywhere, so we didn’t have to come up with a solution for our other TV’s that didn’t get much action. And, we were able to watch movies at Disney World in the hotel. Awesome. 

Now, let’s talk programming. We already were paying $99 for free shipping with Amazon Prime. I had no idea how much free programming Amazon included in the membership. They have original programming, TV shows and movies included in the fee. And, they have a ton of pay-per-view options as well. Other Prime perks? You get access to deals before everyone else, and on most items, fast free shipping. You can stream Prime Music for free, get a free Kindle book every month and so much more. Check it out here. 

We were already paying for Hulu and Netflix for their original programming and access to movies. When you have a teen, $22 a month is a small price to pay for weekend entertainment. On Hulu, you can watch most TV shows a day or so after they air, so we weren’t going to miss out. The only thing we weren’t going to get were specialty channels like History, HGTV and Food Network. We solved that with Sling TV.

For $20 a month, we get 25 channels ranging from CNN to Disney to A&E. This is the lowest subscription they have as you can get up to 40 channels and then start adding to customize. My Dad couldn’t live without the SEC network so he pays for that. There’s only one drawback on Sling. You can only watch it on one TV at a time. This isn’t much of  a problem for us because my Dad only watches at night, but if you have a family of TV junkies, you may need more than one subscription. Since our goal was to cut our TV bill by more than half, we’re happy. 

So want to see how we cut our TV bill by more than half? Here’s what we pay now.

• Amazon- $8.25 ($99 billed annually)

• Hulu- $11.99

• Netflix- $9.99

• Sling- $20

  • This is a grand total of $50.25 a month

We’re saving almost $110 a month. For us, that’s a house payment. And, are we missing out? Last year, we weren’t able to catch all the Royals playoff games because Fox only gave access to cable subscribers, but guess what? That’s why God invented sports bars. That’s been our only complaint. 

Have you attempted to go without traditional TV services? How did it go?