This is a post by staff writer Jeff. Jeff blogs about finances and going green at http://sustainablelifeblog.com and has started a new project detailing his efforts to earn money online at onlinesideincome.com
If you’re looking for a painless way to save some money, one of the easiest ways is to lower your cable bill or get rid of cable TV entirely.
There’s a whole group of people that are “cutting the cord” now, and saving upwards of $1,000 per year doing it. Personally, I convinced my wife back in 2009 that we needed to stop paying these people a huge sum of money for the privilege of sitting in front of the TV and watching stuff we were not interested in just because inertia set in and we didn’t want to do anything else! We realized it was a huge time suck (because we didn’t want to spend all night in front of the TV after work) and a huge money suck (because it was like $150/month) so we got rid of it.
Instead of cable TV, we use streaming for all of our favorite shows. We stream through services like Hulu (free), Netflix ($7.99/month) and Crackle (free), though there are others. Since we still want the TV feel and we don’t want to invite our friends over and crowd around a tiny computer monitor, we wanted to watch on our TV. Since we wanted to do that, we needed some sort of set top box to connect to the TV.
There used to be just two of these on the market, but Amazon recently entered, so we will go over them all.
Google Chromecast
This is what my wife and I decided to use, as it was the cheapest option at $35. The Chromecast is a little dongle that you plug into the HDMI port on your TV (meaning you cannot use Chromecast if you have an “old” analog TV) and connect it to your wireless network. Once the Chromecast is added to your wireless network, you need to add a plugin to Google chrome browser so you can “cast” the tab to your TV. Some services (like Netflix) have built in casting, but some don’t. Total set up time is about 10 minutes.
It works with the streaming options that we have (Netflix) and it works well. We are easily able to pull up a movie on Netflix and in a matter of seconds; it’s on the TV and is loading. Unfortunately, to use the official Hulu Chromecast app, you need to have Hulu plus – which we do not have. They have recently opened the Chromecast up to developers to create apps, but here’s the current list. If you’re interested, you can buy a Chromecast on Amazon.
Amazon FireTV
This just came out recently, and I don’t have one yet, but from looking over the specs the FireTV looks pretty good.
They have apps from Hulu plus, Netflix, ShowTime and watch ESPN (for those who love sports), and it offers easy access to Amazon’s video and TV streaming library. Access to the video and streaming library is only for prime users, which costs $99 per year (8.25/month). The Amazon FireTV unit itself costs $99. With this and Amazon Prime, you can take your cable costs down from $150 per month ($1,800 per year) to a cost of 200 for the first year, then 99 per year thereafter – that’s a savings of over $1500 per year!
It’s also got a remote that you can speak into to tell it to watch your favorite shows. Early reviews are mixed, but the device has promise, and is probably a great fit if you’ve already got Amazon Prime. If you’re interested in a FireTV, you can buy one on Amazon.
Roku Box
Last up is the Roku box. The Roku box was one of the first streaming boxes (along with the now dead Boxee), and has evolved quite a bit. There’s very easy streaming, and they have tons of channels available. More than the Amazon fireTV and Chromecast. You can listen through the Roku remote, as well as play shows from your phone. Right now, the most current version is the Roku 3, but you can pick up a Roku 2 off of eBay or Amazon, and that will probably still meet your needs for streaming.
You can find the list of Roku Channels here, and as I mentioned, they have a lot more availability than the two devices listed above. This unit does cost more than the Chromecast and the same as the Amazon TV (though they still sell Roku’s 1 & 2 on their website), but has a lot more availability. If you don’t have Amazon Prime (but do have Netflix) perhaps a Roku will be best for you. If you’re interested, you can buy a Roku on Amazon.
Those are the most popular streaming options (and yes, I know most don’t offer much sports coverage).
All that being said, do you think that one of these is good enough for you to finally cut the cord and get rid of cable? Maybe you can use that $1,500 per year on a fancy vacation or investing. If so, let us know what one you’re getting (or already have) in the comments!
***Image courtesy of http://cdn.morguefile.com/imageData/public/files/b/breda/
