Dude…how ridiculous is your TV bill? Okay so maybe if you have cable it MIGHT not be soooo bad. You’ve likely spent the time looking for the best cable tv providers, after all. But it can be horrible for satellite…which is really the only thing available in my neck of the woods….we are looking down the barrel of a $200 per month bill. YIKES!
My previous mindset has been, “We can totes afford it.” And we can, but that seems pretty wasteful, especially since we don’t want to be working until we are 60, or even 45 for that matter. (Yes “gig-retirement” is what we are after.) But we have some challenges that I suspect many of you may have that have swayed us from “cutting the cord.” Sometimes, cable TV is useful and you do feel like you’re getting your money’s worth, but other times, it can be wasted. If you’re hesitant about cutting cable TV, it might be worth exploring some of the online streaming websites and applications that allow people to search through a much wider catalog of TV shows and movies. Of course, in order to access these websites, people do need to have a good internet connection to make sure they can download and stream these shows without any interruptions. If you have slower internet, it might be worth searching through some current broadband offers to try and find a better plan. When searching for a new broadband package, there are some things to look out for. People can learn more here if they’re thinking of switching broadband suppliers. Anyway, that’s one method of accessing different entertainment without paying TV bills. Here are some of the challenges that we faced.
Challenge 1: We love live sports, specifically football. During football season, we watch it all. College and NFL. Pre-game and post-game. We play fantasy football too. We also love basketball, and have been looking into FanDuel and their ability to bet on the fantasy WNBA league hosted! The point is, The ability to watch live sports is top priority.
Challenge 2: Local channels. Although we don’t watch the news much. We do live in an area prone to severe weather. Access to local news is key during storm season. We also live below the level of antenna reach, so that isn’t an option for free local channels.
Challenge 3: We love some shows that come on the major networks and are not (to my knowledge) available on Hulu and some of the other streaming services.
Challenge 4: We only have DSL available in our area. BUMMER. So sometimes streaming anything is a pain in the ass. (And also means standard Cable TV isn’t an option.) However, for those shows that we really do enjoy but can’t find streamed elsewhere, in comes the use of using a proxy to gain access to sites that have huge libraries of films and shows that would otherwise be blocked for streaming by an ISP. To read into learning how to do this for yourself, there’s more here regarding proxies to avoid blocked sites.
Enter SlingTV.
Sling fills in the gaps on the shows we can’t get on Hulu and Netflix. And for $25-40 per month, plus no contract, it is perfect for the budget.
The best part is, SlingTV has live TV! And live Sports!
There are really only a few caveats to Sling, and with the result being $175 net savings (or roughly $30k over 10 years) I think we will manage. Here’s what we have found they are (to help you decide):
Caveat 1: There ARE commercials. There are 90 seconds worth, three times a show. Meh.
Caveat 2: There is no DVR, yet. It is my understanding that the DVR service is in beta now.
Caveat 3: You really need and Amazon Fire Stick or Roku or a NEW AppleTV to use it well. Sling offers some sweet deals on those too at a big savings. We figured even purchasing 1 for each of our TVs we are still coming out way ahead and back to saving after 2-4 months.
Caveat 4: We also would like to leave our Hulu account, but aren’t quite confident enough to do so…yet.
Have you tried SlingTV? You can do a trial week here: www.SlingTV.com
If you don’t Sling, then what do you use? Let me know in the comments below!