Cord Cutters Rejoice [Sling TV]

I see a few cord cutter threads so not sure where to stick this. I've been doing some research and coming up empty. Ideally, I want to eliminate or drastically reduce my cable bill. At 45 I've returned to school full time and living off wife's income alone. So the $70 cable bill has to go.

We watch a handful of WB shows (Arrow, Flash, Supernatural, 100) and a handful of SyFy shows (Expanse, Magicians, Dark Matter) and a couple FX shows (Fargo, Americans).

Another catch, because of crazy schedules, we need to watch stuff on our own schedule, so I basically DVR everything right now.

Anyone have any ideas? Hulu seems ideal but it's not showing the SyFy shows without a cable subscription. It says they'll be made available but after a month of checking, they never have been.

RooksGambit wrote:

I see a few cord cutter threads so not sure where to stick this. I've been doing some research and coming up empty. Ideally, I want to eliminate or drastically reduce my cable bill. At 45 I've returned to school full time and living off wife's income alone. So the $70 cable bill has to go.

We watch a handful of WB shows (Arrow, Flash, Supernatural, 100) and a handful of SyFy shows (Expanse, Magicians, Dark Matter) and a couple FX shows (Fargo, Americans).

Another catch, because of crazy schedules, we need to watch stuff on our own schedule, so I basically DVR everything right now.

Anyone have any ideas? Hulu seems ideal but it's not showing the SyFy shows without a cable subscription. It says they'll be made available but after a month of checking, they never have been.

Best bet if you want to stay current on stuff will probably be some combination of Hulu and show season passes via Amazon or iTunes. Even if you have to buy all the SyFy stuff, that'll still end up being cheaper than a single month of cable.

Cord cutting involves a year of waiting. That's what I found, at least. I'm now in the "I can wait for that to hit Netflix" camp with just about every show on the planet. I know Dark Matter is on Netflix along with all the other shows listed. Not sure about Expanse and Magicians though.

But the rub is you'll have to wait until next fall for the newest episodes to arrive there. I think it's worth the wait since I'm paying, oh, $9 a month as opposed to $70+.

RooksGambit wrote:

Anyone have any ideas? Hulu seems ideal but it's not showing the SyFy shows without a cable subscription. It says they'll be made available but after a month of checking, they never have been.

garion333 wrote:

But the rub is you'll have to wait until next fall for the newest episodes to arrive there. I think it's worth the wait since I'm paying, oh, $9 a month as opposed to $70+.

Yeah, this is basically the one drawback of cord cutting--you're not going to get all of the shows you want right as they come out. So, you miss out on a portion of current TV programming, but you also save a good $60/month. You also get the added benefit of watching TV shows/movies you have never had the time for or even heard of.

You've essentially got to come to terms with the fact that you're not going to find a perfect solution with getting rid of cable, but you're going to come pretty damn close and you're going to save a ton of money in the long run.

Thanks everyone. I totally get the, "no perfect solution" thought. If I'm not willing to pay then I have to be willing to sacrifice. I'm just hoping to minimize that sacrifice as much as possible

My big issue with cable TV is most of the cost is in the sports channels. I've read that something like half the bill or more goes towards sports channels. None of which I watch or care about so I'm paying a lot for a tiny fraction of what's offered.

It's like paying for a $100 dinner and only eating a tiny appetizer.

I did explore buying a season pass but sadly the SyFy shows have no such option. They are not on any of the services (apple, play store, vudu, amazon).

I can still watch my SyFy shows online with a cable subscription though...so I think my best bet might be to get a super basic Dish TV package or DirectTV package. No DVR or extra channels or anything then supplement that with Hulu or something that lets me watch episodes on my own schedule.

Are super basic packages cheaper than $70/month? They all advertise $20/$30 a month but that's before you pay for the box, HD, etc. And by box, I don't mean DVR, I mean just the stupid cable box things.

garion333 wrote:

Are super basic packages cheaper than $70/month? They all advertise $20/$30 a month but that's before you pay for the box, HD, etc. And by box, I don't mean DVR, I mean just the stupid cable box things.

DirectTV has a 19.99 year option if you bundle it with home phone (which I don't need but...whatever...). That's a first year deal only then gotta renegotiate or jump to another companies 1st year deal. Kind of pain but not sure what else to do

RooksGambit wrote:
garion333 wrote:

Are super basic packages cheaper than $70/month? They all advertise $20/$30 a month but that's before you pay for the box, HD, etc. And by box, I don't mean DVR, I mean just the stupid cable box things.

DirectTV has a 19.99 year option if you bundle it with home phone (which I don't need but...whatever...). That's a first year deal only then gotta renegotiate or jump to another companies 1st year deal. Kind of pain but not sure what else to do

A monthly fee of $7.00 applies for each receiver and/or Genie Mini/DIRECTV Ready TV on your account.

If you can show me a checkout on DirectTV where you only pay the $20 a month and I'll go buy it in an instant.

Right now I did one TV with "free" HD upgrade and it added $22 to my monthly bill. And that's before fees, taxes, etc.

Edit: I'm not trying to prove you wrong so much as continuing in my belief that cutting the cord continues to be the best way to save money. The cable and satellite providers know they're having issues with younger people because of price and the ubiquity of Netflix, so this is why you see these stripped down packages attempting to draw people in. But they're BS. Just like, say, Sprint's commercials about cutting your phone bill in half are BS.

Sprint's commercials about cutting your phone bill in half are BS.

Are you telling me that the weed-eater lady is lying to me?!?

IMAGE(http://myibd.investors.com/image/Click03-0420-screen.jpg.cms)

SonuvaFemale Doggo!

Yeah, that's not really your bill, it's b-roll from motion capture on Dead Rising 4.

RooksGambit wrote:

I did explore buying a season pass but sadly the SyFy shows have no such option. They are not on any of the services (apple, play store, vudu, amazon).

The Expanse, at least, is on Amazon.

I've basically done a combination of what's been described in the recent posts. For the most part, I'm fine waiting a year for TV shows, and the few that my wife or I want to watch now cost me $20-$30 for the season. Spread across 5-6 months, that's not too bad.

After talking to 2 different CSRs at AT&T/Direct TV it will be 26 total a month. This includes equipment rental, no DVR and no other fancy stuff. I basically don't need a DVR since I can plug-in the cable provider into Hulu and watch my shows on demand (my PC is hooked up to the TV). After 1 year it goes up 15 a month.

That might work out best since my wife likes to watch Discovery, and a few other odds & ends.

I may also switch my internet to them (AT&T Uverse). They insist I'll get the "fiber optic" line but what I heard is that it's DSL going to that line so it's actually limited...both CSRs insist that's not true but I don't think I believe them. So I dunno.

My current bill is 250 / mo through Time Warner. It includes a home security system.

So if I change everything it'll be:

ADT Home Security = 45 / mo with a 100 gift card
Uverse Intrnet @ 45 mps = 50 / mo with 100 gift card
TV with basic package = 26 / mo with 100 gift card

So first year total = 121 / mo minus current bill of 250 / mo = 129 / mo in savings.

It sounds almost too good to me. The skeptic in me is expecting a catch

Are you assuming that just because you have cable at all, you can watch those channels online even though you don't have them on your cable subscription? You might want to double check that because for example that is not how ESPN works.

LeapingGnome wrote:

Are you assuming that just because you have cable at all, you can watch those channels online even though you don't have them on your cable subscription? You might want to double check that because for example that is not how ESPN works.

Good point but the channels I watch are in that subscription plan so I should be fine

RooksGambit wrote:

After talking to 2 different CSRs at AT&T/Direct TV it will be 26 total a month. This includes equipment rental, no DVR and no other fancy stuff. I basically don't need a DVR since I can plug-in the cable provider into Hulu and watch my shows on demand (my PC is hooked up to the TV). After 1 year it goes up 15 a month.

That might work out best since my wife likes to watch Discovery, and a few other odds & ends.

I may also switch my internet to them (AT&T Uverse). They insist I'll get the "fiber optic" line but what I heard is that it's DSL going to that line so it's actually limited...both CSRs insist that's not true but I don't think I believe them. So I dunno.

My current bill is 250 / mo through Time Warner. It includes a home security system.

So if I change everything it'll be:

ADT Home Security = 45 / mo with a 100 gift card
Uverse Intrnet @ 45 mps = 50 / mo with 100 gift card
TV with basic package = 26 / mo with 100 gift card

So first year total = 121 / mo minus current bill of 250 / mo = 129 / mo in savings.

It sounds almost too good to me. The skeptic in me is expecting a catch

Since it sounds like you do a lot of streaming, I would avoid AT&T internet at all costs. Their DSL service comes with a 150GB/month data cap, after which you're going to start eating overage charges. U-Verse(the service that's almost worth a damn, but is still inferior to cable in every possible way) carries a 250GB/month cap. You'll start taking it in the tail from there on up as well.

I've heard nothing but awful things about AT&T uverse

Huh I've had UVerse for about a year and a half now (18Mb speed). No real problems and I had no idea they had a data cap, maybe they don't in my area because I'm sure I've gone over 250GB some months. It is certainly more reliable than TWC that I had before for about two months before I gave up.

Thanks guys. I was super paranoid about a data cap and asked 2 different CSRs about that and they both assured me there is no data cap. I asked them if the throttle speed down at a certain cap and they said no. Maybe I'll ask one more time and ask for a supervisor this time just to be sure.

Could it be a regional thing? LeapingGnome and I are both in Cleveland and no cap.

I'm in Dayton, so 4 hours or so SW of you guys. Definitely a cap here.

Just did a little research and it's a really mixed bag. From what I read some people go way over and get no cap fees or even warning while others get fee's for going over. Very oddly inconsistent. I've also seen a lot of posts that because Comcast and TWC are now selling plans with no cap that AT&T has decided to stop enforcing its cap to stay competitive.

I'm not super thrilled about going with AT&T but it's gotta beat Time Warner.

I've had TWC for a while now. There are definitely better options out there, but I wouldn't include AT&T in that since none of their offerings are as good in terms of price or performance, and none of them are available anywhere in OH.

Thanks for the advice AnimeJ I hope they've changed because I have to do something and the AT&T Internet is bundled with the cable. I plan to call one more time and grill them on it again. Hopefully, it all works out because short of abandoning my favorite shows it my best option.

I poked around online last night in my Uverse account and I could not find anywhere that it showed my monthly usage or measure against a cap, so I assume I have no cap for my area or I would have heard about it.

Rook - I had UVerse cable with DVR for the first year since they had a pretty good 12 month discount going, I think it was their U300 or 400 package. The DVR + HD + fastest internet was $115 a month after fees. I never had any outages on TV or internet that I can remember. When my 12 months was up I called to cancel the cable and keep the internet and they actually ended up paying me to keep basic cable, the offer for basic HD cable + internet ended up being cheaper than just plain internet, so why not ($61 after fees). I really only get locals and few other channels, but I don't watch much cable anyway.

Here's the FAQ straight from AT&T. I've had service with them in the past, and dropped them the moment they announced the caps a few years back. I don't know that they've ever had any sort of front facing bandwidth usage monitor, or have ever intended to provide one outside of the notices that you get when you start approaching the cap, as that's not something the CSR that tried to keep me from leaving was willing to give me a straight answer on. To this day I still find it hilarious that they expected 3 waivers of overage charges to be a good way to keep me as a customer.

RooksGambit wrote:

Thanks guys. I was super paranoid about a data cap and asked 2 different CSRs about that and they both assured me there is no data cap. I asked them if the throttle speed down at a certain cap and they said no. Maybe I'll ask one more time and ask for a supervisor this time just to be sure.

Could it be a regional thing? LeapingGnome and I are both in Cleveland and no cap.

Yes trust sales reps.

Fwiw, as you can see from the faq, there isn't a 'cap' so no one is straight up lying to you, but they damn well know that there's a limit before you can get charged. It just doesn't happen to 99% of their customers so retail peeps find it much easier to say there is no cap in order to get the sale.

Yeah, right now I'm paying around 80 for just internet from TWC. The package from AT&T is a 76 for both internet and cable. I'll ask some more pointed questions tomorrow when I call. I haven't committed yet but my options for internet are limited. Short of dial-up or DSL, it's pretty much just TWC or AT&T

Have you tried calling TWC to renegotiate? I go in once a year and say 'Hey, what can you do for me about this bill?' and they lock me back in at an intro rate for another year. Currently paying $55/mo for internet faster than anything AT&T can get me at that price.

I hate all these companies with such a passion.. I just spent a total of 2.5 hours on the phone with Direct TV then with AT&T then with Time Warner.

AT&T insisted Time Warner also has overage charges and directed me to their support page.

Time Warner says they can get me 30 mbps plus basic TV for 80 a month and by basic TV they mean just the local channels. If I get rid of cable all together and just pay for internet it's the same price because - bundle but overage charges may apply.

The only thing that's been simple in all this is switching out the TIme Warner home alarm system for ADT which was totally straightforward. ADT has a better system with more options than Time Warner for the same price. Easy peasy.

Now I just have to sort out what to do

Wow, that AT&T rep is totally full of sh*t. TWC's allotment is only applicable to their Essentials package, which is the super cheap bottom tier. The 30Mbps tier(which I have) is totally uncapped.

As for TWC pricing, all I can assume is that's a regional thing, not sure why they can't get you internet only for less than 80/month. Might have to have them elevate to a retention specialist, those folks have the best deals.

That was a retention specialist. I actually spoke to 3 tiers of CSRs at TWC. I started out with the regular one, then got a retention specialist, then they transferred me to an even higher tier for Intelligent Home customers.

At this point my wife and I are seriously debating dumping everything but internet and buying season passes as Billt721 suggested above. I figure 4 season passes would be a $100 (approx), thinking about it as a "monthly" bill it would cost around $8 bucks a month which isn't terrible. I'm just so done with all of them.

Thanks for the heads up on AT&T, I dodged a bullet with those overage charges. They may charge it inconsistently but since I'm not working while I go back to school I can't afford to roll the dice in the hopes they don't charge me. Being stuck behind a contract with overage charges would be a disaster.