Save $ Cutting the Cable Cord

[Freespool]

I have almost 4 year old twins.  We do use the TV as a babysitter often because I am gone 11-12 hrs a day Mon-Fri and wife needs to clean and make dinner.  On weekends they get it as I get things done around the house like yard work and house fixing.  They are not old enough to help.  We are having some money issues and TV + internet is $200 month.  Could cut to about $75 for just internet and DirectTV now. 

[FreeLancer]

Check out Hulu and see how many of the familY’s shows are on there, it’s cheaper than Netflix per month, but you have a few commercials to watch.  If you’re Amazon Prime there is some stuff you could stream for free, too. Over the air TV is free and better quality than cable, and very doable if you’re within 40 miles line of sight of the station, for the local network stuff.  Internet only from Spectrum is $44/mo for me and it’s damn fast, way faster than my AT&T DSL.

[Morning Sunshine]

I have almost 4 year old twins.  We do use the TV as a babysitter often because I am gone 11-12 hrs a day Mon-Fri and wife needs to clean and make dinner.  On weekends they get it as I get things done around the house like yard work and house fixing.  They are not old enough to help.  We are having some money issues and TV + internet is $200 month.  Could cut to about $75 for just internet and DirectTV now. 

I have to disagree with the "not old enough to help."  4-6 year olds are the BEST time to teach them to help.  They are soooo excited to be with dad, they will hold things and hand screw drivers.  My then 5-yo pulled frozen chicken breasts out of the freezer, added some broth, covered the pan, and put it in the toaster oven the day her little brother was born.  My husband made the rest of dinner but she did that so it could cook for a few hours.

You have REALLY got to get your wife on board with this.  If she is not, she will be using the tv for the kids behind your back, even if she agreed not to.  And that will cause marital problems.  My kids have never had tv as a babysitter, even when small.  They built with blocks, did puzzles, build with wooden train tracks, etc.
 When they learned to read, that is ALL they do (I have seriously weird kids - they read all the time and fight over whose turn it is to play the piano
They can clean up their own messes, unload dishes from the dishwasher, sort laundry, wash sinks and mirrors.  There are a dozen lists with age appropriate chores for children.  Your wife should not be doing everything.  Although, she will feel that it would be faster and easier to do it herself.  She has to change her mindset (and you too "like yard work and house fixing") that you are not doing the things to get them done quickly, but to teach the kids how to do them.  That will free some of her time AND occupy the kids instead of watching tv.

[Cedar]

Or you can do what we do. Get to watch DVDs when the generator is running to charge the trailer 12 vt batteries. I get to watch YouTube on my phone at that time, and write emails and stuff on my computer to send later when I go to the cafe that has internet.

My 8yr old  daughter likes likes living off grid enough that I was teasing her if we should get electricity in the cottage we will be building, and she said no. She reads, colors, plays with toys, instead of the "tv" most of the time.

Cedar

[fritz_monroe]

I've been trying to cut the cord for a couple of years.  But the wife is not on board with it.  So, we still have Dish Network.

Where we get our content:
We have Amazon Prime, but I rarely think to turn to that for viewing.
We have Netflix and that is used A LOT.  I have the "2 can watch at a time" account, and it's a couple of times a month that one of us will get a message saying that 2 people are already watching.
I built up a Plex server and have the 300+ DVDs on it.  I also have about 15-20 full TV series.  I'll also borrow DVDs to put on the Plex server, once they are watched they get deleted to free space.
We've had Hulu in the past, but it was prior to the current way of doing things, so may have to look into it again.

The problem comes down to The Young and the Restless, Hallmark Channel and the local news.  I haven't looked in the past 6 months or so, but there doesn't seem to be any way to get The Young and the Restless without broadcast or cable TV.  We don't have a good line of sight to the towers ~35 miles away, so I don't want to spend the $100 for a good antenna just in case I can't pull in the signal.

Good luck with your quest to cut the cord.  The only thing you can really do is get your wife on board.  Without her buy in, it cannot happen.

[Zef_66]

I have almost 4 year old twins.  We do use the TV as a babysitter often because I am gone 11-12 hrs a day Mon-Fri and wife needs to clean and make dinner.  On weekends they get it as I get things done around the house like yard work and house fixing.  They are not old enough to help.  We are having some money issues and TV + internet is $200 month.  Could cut to about $75 for just internet and DirectTV now.

I agree with MS:

4-6 year olds are the BEST time to teach them to help.

I have a 4 year old and a 6 year old. They are not hooked to the TV and love to help out. We don't give them chores. They are just expected to help out when asked. And in turn, they find they enjoy doing the things they are asked to do. So much so, on Saturday or Sunday mornings, the 4 year old will often ask me "What do you need help with today." And I love that he wants to spend time with me. Even if it means I have to take a few more minutes to get a picture hung because he wants to pound in the nail. We are doing it together. And it creates work ethic and memories.

I'm right with you that I am gone almost 12 hours a day. My wife stays at home all day with the two littlest ones. And gets the biggest ready for school and off the bus, then starts homework. And usually has dinner cooking by the time I get home. But she does it without using the TV as a babysitter because the kids were never raised that way. Like MS, our kids love to read (even the 4 year old will sit and look at picture books for hours), love puzzles, enjoy building with legos, lincoln logs, blocks, doing crafts, etc. Just last night the two oldest devised a plan to go into each other's rooms and take toys, wrap them in newspaper, and put them under the christmas tree until christmas. They figured they wouldn't miss them much, and then it would be exciting to get to play with them again. So they spent all evening doing this after I got home.

But if your wife isn't on board with it, it will never work.

[CagedFeral]

Somehow we are lucky to have att dsl now. I put up an antenna for local and pay for Netflix and Amazon prime. That's enough for me but the wife wants Game of Thrones. I'm paying $16/mo for that too now. Seems like a soap opera with swords to me.

"Curb Your Enthusiasm" is worth every penny right now though!   Love this show!

[Smurf Hunter]

Week 2 at our house without cable.  We upgraded to the premium hulu, which costs < 1/3 of our comcast TV.
I also made this antenna as a proof of concept.



While I haven't been watching much NFL this season, I am currently watching the NE/JAX game in 1080p using a cedar fence board and 12 gauge copper wire bent in very specific ways.

[archer]

that's a great antenna

[LvsChant]

We haven't had cable or dish since 2010 or so... we have an antenna on our house and are able to pick up a seriously good number of local channels in our relatively small town (including your soap operas and local news) for free. We also have Amazon Prime and Netflix. We have gotten really spoiled by streaming and almost cannot maintain interest in regular TV through the commercials... I highly recommend cutting the cable.

[Redman]

We got rid of cable TV 4 years ago bought a Roku and HD converter and been happy with that and our old analog TV since. Recently our son in law bought us a "smart" TV, came with a bunch of stuff installed. All is good except I can't install the channels some of the other that we like. Stuck with what the manufacturer installed. I still have the Roku and recently thought I could connect to the composite connection on the TV, already got a DVD player there, and run a set up like I had on the old TV. Roku, DVD player connected to a switch box and that connected to the TV.  Switching TV inputs is accomplished via the TV, switching the Roku and DVD accomplished with the external switch box. Haven't done it yet but seems it should work.

[fritz_monroe]

I only sort of cut the cord.

We have YouTube TV to cover the wife's requirement of Young and the Restless.  We have a Roku on each TV.  We also have Netflix, but the kids are the main ones that watch that.

The biggest thing that we watch is movies and TV on my Plex server.

[fritz_monroe]

Just renewing the thread.  Looking to see what you guys are doing.

It's now 2 years later and I figured I'd expand on what we are doing.

My wife's Y&R fix is still fulfilled wit YouTube TV.
Netflix fulfills the majority of my daughter's TV viewing.
My son watches mainly YouTube, but occasionally watch stuff on Plex.
The rest of what my wife and I watch is on Plex, but we watch some series on Amazon Prime.  Once the rest of the family go to bed, I watch YouTube.

[Bradbn4]

Bringing life to old topics with new tech....

There is a lot of hardware out there pre-built into the current generation of TV's and bluray players for people trying to cut classic Cable or Dish/direct TV.

Also simple hardware like the new Raspberry PI 4b can convert an old(er) style TV into a Smart TV.  I did play with the earlier raspberry PI hardware and found them useful for many things, but YouTube and Kodi were sometimes hit or miss.

My next purchase to reduce my need for 'cable' is to find a nice external TV antenna with mount pole to hook up my basement TV. 

Right now my basement TV uses the built in applications + a hook to my computer for when I want to enjoy something on the big screen.

[fritz_monroe]

Also simple hardware like the new Raspberry PI 4b can convert an old(er) style TV into a Smart TV.  I did play with the earlier raspberry PI hardware and found them useful for many things, but YouTube and Kodi were sometimes hit or miss.

I've been running a RasPlex on a Raspberry Pi 2 in the exercise room for several years.  Works great to stream my workout videos from my Plex server.

[Bradbn4]

I found that the 'channel flipping' was a bit sluggish on the P2. But once on the channel it seem to be able to work well.  The newer P3b+ was a nice jump in speed and the P4B  kicks the old P2 to the curb.

I have not done the Plex thing yet.  Tho I had no issues with playing back local files on the Pi.

You do get a lot of computer in the Raspberry Pi line. 

[Stwood]

All we have is Dish that also comes with Hughes.net internet.
Total bill per month is $127 and change.

[CharlesH]

We finally got fiber to the home on our road rural street.  It’s great!  We’ve got several services: Netflix, Amazon, CBS All Access (the wife and I grew up on Star Trek), and MLB.com.  We also have an outdoor antenna for the network tv and the miscellaneous channels they all have these days.

[Stwood]

Missouri seems to have shut down on installing the rural internet cable, the big orange cable.
It's ran down the nearest state hwy, but that's where they quite.  Still nine mile away from us. If they ever get it here, depending on price, I'd rather have a cable hookup than satellite.

[fritz_monroe]

I'm in the same boat.  Periodically I'll see them working on extending the fiber up the road.  But they don't make very quick progress.  They stopped about 3 miles down the road, and that was last Summer.  Not sure if they plan on continuing, but I'm in an area that the big cable providers don't support.  Sure would be nice to have fiber to the house.

[Stwood]

Yea, would be nice.
We have 2 options. Satellite, or hooking a phone line back up and getting reconnected, and a internet provider. Last go around with the thieving, robbing, AT&T network, that ain't happening.

[archer]

roku with netflix and amazon prime. cbs all access when star trek has a new season...
wondering about setting up a roku attached server on my home pi to use..

[Stwood]

Explain roko. What does it operate off of?

[fritz_monroe]

Explain roko. What does it operate off of?

Roku is a set top box.  It's self contained and has various apps available for different channels.

roku with netflix and amazon prime. cbs all access when star trek has a new season...
wondering about setting up a roku attached server on my home pi to use..

So is CBS all access available without having a cable subscription?  And what do you mean by a roku attached server?

[Redman]

Explain roko. What does it operate off of?

Where is info from the Roku website. Hope this helps.

https://www.roku.com/how-it-works

It's a wi-fi thingy, pretty much works off of magic. 

[Stwood]

Fritz and Red. Thanks

[archer]

So is CBS all access available without having a cable subscription?  And what do you mean by a roku attached server?

yes. i subscribe to cbs all access, then use that login info to setup a roku channel so i can watch cbs all access on the roku.
a roku is a small set top box with wifi and the ability to connect to amazon prime/hulu/netflix/cbs/etc. lot of channels.

i can setup a server on my pi that connects to a roku channel so i can access videos on my pi server. or you can setup a server on a windows system and access it thru the roku. plex.tv is one if i remember.

[Bradbn4]

This info is some what dated and 2nd hand about Satellite performance.

Using / watching youtube videos would chew thru fast the amount of data that users were allowed to consume.  During peak periods the amount of lag was significant.  Once the limits for data usage kicked in, bandwidth speeds dropped to about dial-up speed.

Things have improved with the current generation of hardware and the soft / hard limits have changed for the better.   There are times during the late night and early mourning that lets the user access the network and consume non-prime data rates.

Big storms would often cause loss of signal for both TV and internet.

If you are willing to spend the money, additional bandwidth could be purchased. 

[fritz_monroe]

yes. i subscribe to cbs all access, then use that login info to setup a roku channel so i can watch cbs all access on the roku.
a roku is a small set top box with wifi and the ability to connect to amazon prime/hulu/netflix/cbs/etc. lot of channels.

i can setup a server on my pi that connects to a roku channel so i can access videos on my pi server. or you can setup a server on a windows system and access it thru the roku. plex.tv is one if i remember.

Cool, I'll look into CBS All Access.

I'm well aware of what a Roku is, hehe.  I've had a Roku on each TV in the house for about 6 years now.

Much of what we watch is on my Plex server.  300+ movies and a dozen TV series at any given time. 

[iam4liberty]

Didnt see any mentions of newsOn.  This is a free channel on Roku that gives streaming access to local news programs around the country.  it is a great prepper resource as it allows one to bypass the national media filter and get the word on the ground.

It is also great if you are looking to move as you can scope out what is happening is prospective communities.