So before I moved in to my apartment I had already made the decision that I wasn’t going to subscribe to cable TV. I really didn’t need 300+ channels of crap TV to watch, I basically watch Food Network, Discovery Channel and Cartoon Network (yes, I am serious). I knew it was time to cut the cord!
The day I moved in to my apartment I had Cox internet setup and went with their upgraded plan of “Up to 300/mbps”. Mainly because I got a smoking deal on the first year and I knew we would be doing a ton of streaming.
Then I got an amazing deal on an open box 65″ TCL Wifi television that runs the Roku interface. I already had subscriptions to Hulu and Netflix and since those apps are built-in the interface I was set there. Next step was to grab an Amazon Firestick and get that jailbroke. I went with Terraium TV and Mobdro for my break and literally have every movie, TV show and sporting event at my fingertips. Awesome! You can jailbreak this on your own (Search YouTube for a ton of simple how to videos) or you could skip that and purchase a jailbroken Firestick from many of the marketplace sellers on FaceBook. Just make sure if you go this route its from someone reputable who offers updates or at least instructions for doing updates.
But I am also an avid news junkie and I watch my church service on Sundays so I had to have local stations. Now here is where you will get a TON of differing opinions. I went with the cheapest antenna I could find at Walmart and made sure it was close to a window to pick up approx. 40 local broadcast channels. I also get some more main stream cable channels as well (QVC, HSN, ESPN…). Why spend $30-$60 on an antenna that isn’t going to do much more than the $8 one I grabbed from Wally World? I set up another TV just yesterday with an even cheaper antenna and it has even more channels that I do. It’s much closer to the window and that seems to be the only real difference.
Some of the things I did before making this leap:
- Googled which cable stations I watched were available on either Firestick, via app I could download to either the TV or the Firestick or if they had a streaming site
- Researched what apps my SmartTV had installed that I could use to get more content as needed
- Searched for the best price on a Firestick (Amazon has them on sale fairly regularly for $19.95; An already set up one should run you between $50-$80. My suggestion, find someone you know who has already set one up and pay them $15-$20 to set up yours)
- Check your TV. Most recent TVs are SmartTV’s so you should be good to go
A lot of folks had asked me what I did to cut the cord and save some money and this is it. If you have questions please leave a comment and I will answer as best I can!
Thanks!