We all know that cutting the cord on cable and satellite TV can be as tough as sending your first born off to college. To understand how to cut the cord, you first have to know and understand why you want to cut the cord.

The number one reason people choose to keep paying high cable bills is because it’s convenient, everything is in one place. Your DVR, locals, sports and news all come from one provider on one device.

Some of the biggest concerns for anyone looking to cut the cord is not having everything in one place and where to start. With so many options, how do you know which service is right for you. Ditching cable or satellite can be tough at first, but there are tricks to making it easy and getting it right the first time around. 

Why your Cable is So High

Most people don’t know that cable and satellite companies have contracts for every network they deal with. Most of these contracts are based on 1, the number of subscribers a company has, and 2, the popularity of the network. So when you here news that a TV provider like AT&T buys Time Warner, you have to understand that the underlying objective is to control the assets like movies and TV show rights.

On top of paying for programming they have other expenses such as product development which is trial and error, salary increases, employee salaries, call centers, and the list goes on. In short at the end you have very high cable bills.

Why I Cut the Cord

Let me start off with my story. While working for a Satellite company I noticed that most people were either too busy to watch TV or only watched a few of the channels they subscribed to, but still kept the high cost package because of seasonal programming. Even after informing them of potential savings by switching to a lower package, most people would come up with reasons to keep the higher package. Which I thought was ridiculous, but who am I to judge, I was guilty of doing the same thing.

I was working 12+ hours a day and keeping the higher package because there “might” be a new show I would want to watch. At the time I was getting the most popular package for free aside from taxes and receiver fees (employee discount), but I still upgraded to get every channel which added $50 to a bill that should’ve been free.  

See I believe that most of us are “programmed” and set aside money for pay TV. Most people see it as a necessity when its a luxury. When you can afford a luxury service you tend to feel a little better inside, right? I’m not saying that pay TV is toxic, but I believe the future for it is extremely bleak. Streaming services are becoming top tier and big companies along with advertisers are jumping on the stream only bus. Most of us don’t think of cutting the cord as a way to save money, but it adds up.

Save more Money for your Kids Future

Lets say you have kids, the youngest being 8 years old. If you were to cut the cord saving an average of $1200 per year for 10 years, you’ll have over $10k to do with as you please by the time he or she is ready to leave the house.

Ways to cut the cord

1. Wing yourself off of pay tv. Start by downgrading your current tv package 
2. Find programs similar to the ones you currently like. For example an alternative option for ID lovers would be the Justice Network.
3. Do more outdoor activities
4. Read more books
5. view a list of available ota networks/channels