Cable bill.

[33 IMP]

I need a little help from those that have killed their cable bill.
We have used cable , with internet service, for about five years here( tri-state Az), paying what I feel is an outrageous $300/month. I would be perfectly happy on an antenna, but if I want anything like peace in the house (happy wife, happy life!), that won't work. The gf has to have her premium channels!
We currently have HBO and Showtime, and apparently Netflix, (which I don't use, cause I don't know how to access it, and frankly, I don't care)
A busy office, at the end of the month, so I dropped a check in the box for $300, and walked away
Now , the gf says we have no HBO, and she's right, so I call the cable company, they say the bill is overdue, and I have to pay a late charge.
So I go to the office with proof they cashed the check, and it was on time. They say a "promotion" ended and the bill was $330, plus late fee (what f-ing promotion? The one that ran five years?!?)

So, I'm fed up. I'm looking for an alternative (satellite, streaming service, [ever done it, don't know how] or something?) to keep the gf happy, and not give the cable company four thousand dollars a year any more.

Are there any good alternatives that a total incompetent like me can use?

 

[Sixpactogo]

Wow! $300 a month huh? I thought it was bad here at $244.00, and that is for expanded basic Cable TV, Internet and a Land Line phone. I have Two cable boxes (one for each TV at $11.00 each included) I had some issues with what they call "pictulation" last week and had a tech out to replace all the wiring. He told me that if I went with the streaming method, I could get rid of both cable boxes saving me $22.00 per month. I am not up to speed on any of the tech mumbo-jumbo either but I am considering the streaming thing. Gonna check with my teenage Grand daughter first though. Seems like the kids have a way better handle on the tech stuff than we do. Good luck coming up with a workable plan.

 

[GetX'd]

You’ve got to be kidding me - $300!!!! What a waste **** of $$. Cut them off. Join Sling for $60 a month it will give you most of what she wants and you can add HBO and Netflix if you want as well as others like Paramount+ and Peakock for a few dollars each a month. HBO will cost you $10 and Netflix cheapest - but all you need is $6.99. You’ll have the house in terms of content and she’ll probably screw you till neither one of you can walk. Total that’s less than $80-$90 a month. Get moving …..

You’ll also need a basic Roku Express device from Amazon for less than $30 one time cost.

 

[T2R9]

For what your looking for You-Tube TV would work. It's $80 a month and will get you the local stations plus the standard cable stations like ESPN, TBS, News channels, Weather, etc. From there you can add on HBO and Showtime for extra $$ but it still wont add up to what your paying now. Netflix is its own subscription and if either one of you have Amazon Prime, their Prime TV is included and it has a ton of good stuff so add that. No need to pay cable companies these days.

 

[toolmanmike]

Ours is $346 with expanded TV (no premium channels though), 1 GB internet and phone.
Mediacom has been holding us hostage for years. A dish in your yard was the only other option.
The City has finally lit the fuse for a fiber utility. Damn that costs millions to outfit the whole city with service
but they can provide TV and 10 GB of internet for $100+ less/month. One thing nice about fiber is the download and upload speeds are equal.
No playing games like Mediacom does with the numbers. Their upload isn't bad but you try to download a video or even a batch of photos from your computer to the net and it takes for ever. We can't wait to get hooked up.

 

[hunt2elk]

$300 a month, that's crazy money. We got rid of Dish a couple years ago now and don't miss it or the bill a bit. We have an antenna that pulls in 20 or so channels for no cost. NBC, ABC, FOX, PBS. Then the wife pays for Netflix and a couple others thar we get through a couple of cheap Roku's. I know we don't pay $30/ month.

 

[zyzzyx]

I live west of "Chicago" and I got tired of $220.00 bills from Comcast/Xfinity. Brought all their junk back
and did the T Mobil $50.00/month 5g internet and YouTube T.V. with free Paramount+ for $76.00/month.
Closest thing to the way Comcast operates. The connection is kind of slow, so don't think you're gonna
be a gamer on the network, but it's fine for uploads and downloads and most streaming. I'm exactly one
mile from the tower in flat "Hellinois". Bill never goes up and you can add whatever you want. Good Luck!

 

[33 IMP]

You’ve got to be kidding me - $300!!!! What a waste **** of $$. Cut them off. Join Sling for $60 a month it will give you most of what she wants and you can add HBO and Netflix if you want as well as others like Paramount+ and Peakock for a few dollars each a month. HBO will cost you $10 and Netflix cheapest - but all you need is $6.99. You’ll have the house in terms of content and she’ll probably screw you till neither one of you can walk. Total that’s less than $80-$90 a month. Get moving …..

You’ll also need a basic Roku Express device from Amazon for less than $30 one time cost.

The gf might like that. She's been paying half each month, ( the ONLY reason I put up with the bill for so long).
THANKS! That's the kind of input I am looking for!

 

[33 IMP]

$300 a month, that's crazy money. We got rid of Dish a couple years ago now and don't miss it or the bill a bit. We have an antenna that pulls in 20 or so channels for no cost. NBC, ABC, FOX, PBS. Then the wife pays for Netflix and a couple others. I know we don't pay $30/ month.

At my Socal house, (the gf lives in az) I'm on an antenna, and I'm fine with it. I can pull in about a hundred channels......


Twenty in English, thirty in Chinese, and fifty in spanish.

 

[Dave6T4]

I pay juast south of $200.00 per month for landline, Internet, and cable package. We are serviced by a small independant company called Eastlink. Rogers or Bell won't come near us. Most of thr summer, there are just reruns on the cable, so we watch other programming that my wife pays for; Amazon Prime, Britbox, Discovery, Disney, etc. I maintain this cable, so I can still see local news. Now, Bell has laid off 4800 people up here, so some of our local news programmes have been axed. I would like to drop the Eastlink cable service and try a different supplier, but we have no choices here. Monkeying around with any part of the package bundle increases the cost of the remaining services. I could likely get rid of the cable, but the price of the remaining telephone and internet would rise, so I would be paying almost as much as i was before

 

[5.7 hemi]

All of you that pay $100 or more for cable must be rich!

 

[68gtxman]

We pay $325 a month now for Xfinity’s triple play. Next week, we are dropping their TV package (only had HBO in it which we rarely watched). Going with the smart TV and streaming, plus rooftop antenna (over 30 channels in higher definition that Xfinity).

 

[Budnicks]

I have Xfinity-1 cable, with YouTube TV included,
edited;
Xumo Freevee Awesome Plix, a **** load of other 'free internet TV' too
like 45 of them or other 'free' TV apps, many are free and included in the price
2 boxes, the internet 10g fast **** (the most expensive part)
a landline phone, unlimited LD & international calls
w/Digital-HD expanded service & sports bundle,
100hrs of DVR (I DVR a lot)
capable of DVR-ing 7 shows at once if need be, (used to be 2 max)
storage for a year
all in a bundle...
Way better than the old Comcast was...
I like it, is it a bit more than I like to spend ? yes
but;
if I was to get the 3 items same services all seperately,
it'd be even more $$$
X1 now bundles pretty much everything for $227
TV service we have alone with X1 is like $84
have to renegotiate after 12 months...

My now 87 y/o dad is sitting in front of the damn TV
in his recliner 12-14 hrs a day, it's cheap entertainment,
for all 'his shows he likes', to me that's priceless...

Most his shows you can't get without cable of some kind either...
No matter what some say is out there, in the cheaper stuff...
After he's gone I may, probably will do something else
but he's not good with any tech at all, or real changes at all
even just switching over to X1 was a huge change to him...
Barely work the remote properly...

Up where we are, not many good alternate choices either
this county, even for Calif. is a decade/s behind the times in tech/tv etc.
we have a SONY Bravia, A smart TV capable of plug & play of any of that stuff
& it's not offered here, so we still have to pay rental on 2x cable boxes $9.99 ea
& a modem/wifi $9.99, $29.97 of the bill/having to use their rentals/boxes
& $15-$21 a month extra BS fees/taxes from the state, so that's almost $50 of the bill
every month, that's what's nucken' futs

 

[Tony Tee]

I while back I purchased a hisense smart TV and a cheap roku. Box and $40 per month flat rate internet. That by the way increased to $41.xx LOL
And have way too much crap to watch even if I was stuck here 24/7 !

 

[Sixpactogo]

All of you that pay $100 or more for cable must be rich!

Never thought of myself as rich but I must be pretty close. My cable bill breaks down to $84.99 plus $21.98 for the two receiver boxes before taxes. My newest vehicle will be 20 next year so that helps.

 

[Sam69sat]

If this is what you look like as a couple i can understand and it's worth it. Otherwise, ditch the cable!

 

[alsant]

We pay $85 for spark light here in PV AZ. For our internet and WiFi , we bought our own router.

 

[68-500]

Dump the cable. The GF will get happy in the the same panties she got mad in. If not give her the boot . If HBO is what keeps her around I wouldn’t want her.
BTW my TV bill comes up to exactly $0

 

[ckessel]

We are at 60 or so for base internet. We can stream off of it quite well. Base Netflix, Amazon prime are add ons. Youtube is free. Less than a c-note per month and we're fine. Don't need networks or the latest shows and episodes. We use the laptops for current news and surfing. We went for almost 10 years with nothing, our choice, due to Direct and Dish gouging and screwups. Having to pay over $200 to watch commercials with a sprinkle of actual program in the mix or re-runs is silly. We bought movies to play on the DVD unit or read books and we are still alive.

 

[Detective D]

Not sure what you have available.
In WI, antennas from the 1960's will still pull in over the air.

We bought a samsung panel from sams club a couple years ago. Samsung has their own built in "samsung tv" and it has a whole slug of what i would consider "not premium" cable channel-esque tv. Gameshows, news, crime and drama channels, none of which I watch(wife does) and then motor trend tv, NHRA channel(I watch this a lot) channel for Top Gear(meh) but you get the idea. All this needs is an internet connection. No fees ever, it is built into the tv.

I don;t know how the rest of the country works. I haven't paid for tv in my life. OH NO! I didn;t get to watch the Sopranos I guess?
You can buy the entire series on DVD on ebay for a lot less then most pay for a month of cable.
PHYSICAL MEDIA IS STILL THE KING OF VALUE.
Let other people review stuff, watch snips of interesting things on youtube and decide if you want to buy a show on physical media to binge watch.

Of course, I watch almost no tv besides gearhead stuff. So YMMV. The wife would rather own a series on DVD and watch it whenever then pay for satellite also.