Fire Stick

[Plumber1]

So my cable bill is getting to the point I need to consider something else. I have Internet, Phone and Cable TV, the phone I can do without as I use my cell most of the time. I need internet but considering another source for the TV. School on the Amazon Fire Stick or other option for TV. I would like to reduce my $280.00 / month Xfinity bill, not when my Fire Insurance is being cancelled by Allstate and having to the Calif Fair Plan and my rates will be going up 275% compared to last year.

 

[Zorba]

Wife has a Roku do-dad. She pays something like $25-ish/mo for netflix and Discovery+, and gets a bunch of other stuff free. How that compares to anything else I have no idea as I lost interest in TV decades ago, but it sure beats cable!

 

[TJ Jim]

I’m liking YouTube tv quite a bit. You can dvr unlimited and remove the channels you don’t care for. $85 plus your internet connection.

 

[Zorba]

I’m liking YouTube tv quite a bit. You can dvr unlimited and remove the channels you don’t care for. $85 plus your internet connection.

Yikes! I guess that beats $288 though.

 

[TJ Jim]

Yikes! I guess that beats $288 though.

Your spot on with that Roku. That’s all I would need for the little bit of tv I watch. In fact all the free stuff on Roku would fit me and the little bit I watch. Roku $0 plus $50 internet. The YouTube tv is mostly for the wife.

 

[Daryl]

All you need is internet if you have a smart tv. If you don’t have a smart tv, then use a fire stick.

 

[IPerkWVU]

I like Roku for devices vs being tied to Amazon.

 

[Mike_H]

I cut the cable about 10 years ago. The only thing I miss is hockey games, but there are streaming apps for that...and sports in general. I have a firestick. Its pretty decent. The rest of my TV's are smart TV's and don't need the extra Amazon fluff.

Be careful trying to save money by cutting the cord. Its REALLY easy to pile up streaming services at 20 bucks a pop and all of a sudden, you're paying the same as cable. Your internet will cost more (mine is 75 bucks a month) because you're not "bundled." We pay for netflix (15'ish), amazon prime (kinda free), motortrend on demand (5.00), and I have a premium Youtube (15'ish) subscription. Add Hulu, disney plus, HBO max, etc into that and you start tickling the cost of cable again...of course, HBO is premium anyway, so if you want that garbage, you pay regardless.

 

[flyinfish]

Removing that overpriced monkey on your back called cable TV was easier than I thought and haven't missed it.
Getting a near hundred dollar Internet streaming package like youtube TV will be a stop gap solution but they'll end up increasing the price and you'll be right back to that overpriced cable TV model that needs a kick in the ass too.

We had netflix for quite a while and dumped it a few years ago due to lack of new content, too much foreign crap and too much agenda driven garbage. Now it's a small amount of Amazon video (since we're paying for prime already) and have a Roku box that has quite a bit of content to watch, especially the Roku channel itself.
Most watch way too much TV and would be better served if they went outside and enjoyed the real world with family and friends. TV and social media has become a boat anchor, especially for kids and is a very tough habit to break.

Funny story, back in the late 80's when cable was becoming popular it was $50 and my exact words were, "there's no way in hell I'd pay $50 just to watch TV". Fast forward and I made it up to $250 before pulling the plug about six years ago. I tried many times in the years prior saying I'd do it but didn't want to give up a couple shows I liked. After pulling the plug I've saved a bunch of money and don't even miss those shows I thought I would!

Yank that bandage off!

 

[Apparition]

I cut the cable about 10 years ago. The only thing I miss is hockey games, but there are streaming apps for that...and sports in general. I have a firestick. Its pretty decent. The rest of my TV's are smart TV's and don't need the extra Amazon fluff.

Be careful trying to save money by cutting the cord. Its REALLY easy to pile up streaming services at 20 bucks a pop and all of a sudden, you're paying the same as cable. Your internet will cost more (mine is 75 bucks a month) because you're not "bundled." We pay for netflix (15'ish), amazon prime (kinda free), motortrend on demand (5.00), and I have a premium Youtube (15'ish) subscription. Add Hulu, disney plus, HBO max, etc into that and you start tickling the cost of cable again...of course, HBO is premium anyway, so if you want that garbage, you pay regardless.

Disney, Hulu and ESPN are included with my Verizon phone plan.

I like the firestick because I can search for something I want to watch and it will search all the apps such as Netflix, prime, hulu... Plus if you have a relative with a cable plan you can log in and watch pretty much anything.

 

[cliffish]

$291/mo here + netflix like $22/mo It is ridiculous and I barely watch TV...nothing is ever on. At the PA house we only have internet and firestick still $107/mo.
Anyone have FUBU tv?

 

[LJBean]

We cut the cord like ten years ago. I decided I was willing to pay to have crap piped out of my house, but not for it to be piped in. I do miss the occasional baseball or football game. I wish there was a pay-per-view option for sports so I don't have to subsidize stuff that doesn't interest me.

 

[freedom_in_4low]

I use a game console (Xbox One S) for my main TV just because it has a 4k blu ray capable optical drive. My office TV uses a Roku. Happy with both.

 

[Mike_H]

Disney, Hulu and ESPN are included with my Verizon phone plan.

I like the firestick because I can search for something I want to watch and it will search all the apps such as Netflix, prime, hulu... Plus if you have a relative with a cable plan you can log in and watch pretty much anything.

Hmmm... I have verizon. I'll have to look into that.

The cable companies are trying to crack down on account sharing, aren't they? I know netflix was pushing some pretty ridiculous penalties if they caught you.

 

[Apparition]

Hmmm... I have verizon. I'll have to look into that.

The cable companies are trying to crack down on account sharing, aren't they? I know netflix was pushing some pretty ridiculous penalties if they caught you.

https://www.verizon.com/support/disney-bundle-faqs/

I wouldn’t go crazy account sharing.

 

[Mike_H]

https://www.verizon.com/support/disney-bundle-faqs/

I wouldn’t go crazy account sharing.

Thanks for the link. My business account is not eligible, nor is my wife's prepaid.

 

[srimes]

I like our fire sticks. Went with that as we already had prime and didn't want to buy a "smart" tv. Have to be careful with the add-ons as 3.95 here and 8.95 there can add up quick! And it's hard to track when the billing comes in under different transactions vs all in one place.

Plus side it's really easy to add and cancel the add on services. With on demand is you can select 1 add on (ie Hulu), binge-watch everything good, cancel and go to the next.

In theory anyways. I let the wife manage that and I know we pay too much

 

[freedom_in_4low]

If your "fear of missing out" isn't strong enough to compel you to sign on for more services for specific shows, any single streaming platform should offer more content than an individual can ever watch.

We have the Disney Plus bundle that includes Hulu, and Prime, which we would have anyway for the 2 day shipping. We share those accounts with my parents. My parents have Netflix and share that account with us and my brother. They pay for 3 TV's, and we all live within 3 miles so I think it would be hard for them to geographically resolve our IP addresses with enough precision to know for certain we're not three devices in the same house.

That totals about $20 a month max for any of us. I haven't had a land line since 2010 (which is when my DSL internet company eliminated the requirement to have a land line in order to receive internet) and I haven't had any form of cable or satellite service since 2013.

EDIT: Just remembered we also get Peacock packaged with our internet service. We hardly ever watch it though because there's plenty on the other services.

 

[suicideking]

We have a smart TV, Firestick, Playstation 4. Yet I still subscribe to Directv/AT&T because I watch sports.

We subscribe to Netflix, Amazon prime, Disney, HBO (included with Directv). Since my TV is an LG, apparently they can't figure out a deal with HBO. So I watch HBO Max on the PS4.

So we're paying a bunch and have reached our limit on paid streaming services. Wife handles the money for the most part. She was thinking of switching to a Spectrum plan that essentially uses an Apple TV (probably could just use the PS4). By the time we added the sports channels I would want, it ended up being about the same. So we're still on Directv.

We mostly watch Netflix. Though have Disney for the kids for the Star Wars shows and a few others. Amazon is included in our prime membership. Sometimes some good shows on there.

 

[LJBean]

We live about 30 miles outside of Dallas and can get OTA stations clearly with a larger antenna in the attic. Added Tablo to put the OTA stations on our wireless router so I can beam the OTA stations out in my shop without adding another antenna. Using Roku on our TVs and also subscribe to Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Britbox. Still way less than cable. Toying with dropping Netflix since we seem to be watching less of their programming and their price keeps going up. Also might look into adding ESPN+ to add to the sports options once college football ramps up.