Have You Cut The Cord To Cable Or Fios?

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Have you cut the cord to cable or fios? I’m considering it.

We have fios tv service, it’s bundled in with our internet and telephone. I’m pleased with the service, and we don’t have outages all the time like when we had Comcast. We have network channels and a bunch of other channels, as well as HBO and Showtime. The package we have is no longer available. We are paying $122.99 a month for our fios service, plus another $60 for the boxes. It’s too much. We’re off contract right now. I spoke with the fios people. I can stay with the package I have. They’d love for me to do another 2-year contract, but their offer for me to renew would actually increase my costs by $37 a month. That’s ridiculous! We need to cut costs to save money and I’m strongly considering cutting the cord to the fios and switching to streaming tv.

If I drop my fios service and just keep my phone and internet, my cost to fios would drop to $99.99 and I’d have the same internet speed that I have right now. Our internet speed is 75/75 and we aren’t capped. Or, I could double my internet speed if I spend $114.99 per month. Either way I would be committing to a 2-year contract for phone and internet, which really doesn’t bother me.

We already have a monthly subscription to Hulu for $5.99 per month, as well as to Netflix for $10.99 per month. I want to keep those.

I have spent the last two months streaming most of what I watch through those two services or through the local networks online. I did this in an effort to see if everything I want from tv could be done without having fios. It seems that I can watch most network shows the next day right on the network site with no charge, which is what I’ve been doing for like 2 months now. Basically I have been letting everything I regularly record on my DVR stay on my DVR until I watched it streaming online. That way I was sure of which shows I watch are available streaming. There are a couple from CBS that don’t go to Hulu that I’ve watched on the network site the next day without a subscription.

My oldest son only streams so it would work for him. My youngest son watches only Universal Kids, Nick Jr and Disney. Hubby watches all sorts of stuff, but yet complains there’s never anything on.

I know if you switch to streaming tv you need a way to control it. We do not have any smart televisions. At this time there’s an Apple TV and PS3 in the living room, an Xbox in my son’s room, an Apple TV in my other son’s room, and an Apple TV in my bedroom. We have no desire to watch only on computer, laptop or cell phone, we want to watch through a television.

I contemplated not getting any live tv package, but that would leave us with no local news. To be honest we don’t watch a ton of news, and there are news channels. We do watch some of the other channels in the packges, so I figured I’d look at entry level live tv streaming packages.

The services I’m considering switching to are Hulu Live, Directv Now and YouTube TV. They’re all about $40 per month. They all say there is no contract and you can cancel anytime.

Hulu Live

Hulu Live would be $39.99 per month. Hulu Live lets you stream 2 tvs at a time. If I wanted to stream 3 tvs at once it would be another $15 per month, and I really don’t want to have to add that because it would really decrease the price advantage of cutting the cord.

Hulu Live does not seem to have The CW channel, which has a few shows I like. I can watch them through the CW’s online site. They also don’t seem to have Nick Jr, which my youngest likes.

Directv Now

Directv Now would be $40 per month for their Live A Little package of 65 channels. You can stream 2 tvs at once with them as well, but for an additional $5 you are able to stream 3 tvs at once.

Directv Now doesn’t seem to have the Universal Kids channel my youngest watches. Directv Now does have TV Land, which hubby sometimes has liked in the past, which neither of the other two have.

YouTube TV

Youtube TV would also be $40 per month. That membership allows for 3 tvs to stream simultaneously.

As is the case with Hulu, YouTube TV does not seem to have The CW channel. I can watch their shows through the CW’s online site. They don’t seem to have Nick Jr that my youngest likes. They also don’t have A&E, which we do watch.

If I drop the fios I save $83 – $23 on the monthly service and $60 on boxes. Two of the options above are $40, the other would be $34. So basically if I give up fios and switch to streaming with a live tv package I’d save $40-$43 per month.

So far I am thinking that Hulu Live makes the most sense as we already subscribe to Hulu. If we switched to Hulu Live what we have would be included, so the monthly fee would be $34, making it slightly less than the others. But, I don’t know for sure if we could get by on 2 streams. With our family’s crazy hours along with having Netflix it’s a possibility. I really don’t want to give up the Universal Kids now channel, which Directv Now doesn’t have so it’s another thing in Hulu Live’s favor.

I could save a lot more by not having a live tv package and just sticking with the monthly subscriptions to Hulu and Netflix, I just don’t know if that’s the way I really want to go or how it would work for us. My other option is to try that first, and if that doesn’t work step up to one of the live tv streaming packages for $40.

Have you “cut the cord” from fios, cable or satellite? What are you using to stream to your tvs? Any regrets, surprises? Upsides, downsides? I’d love to hear about your experience, hoping it will help me think things through and be sure I’m not missing something.