We’re in the same boat. Our promotional triple bundle expires this month. I’ve talked to the cable company once already. Without another promotion, our bill would go up almost $80/month. When I told them that wasn’t acceptable, they found a promotion that’ll cost me $10/month more than I’m paying now, but without HBO and SHO which were given free this past year. So I can pay them more to get less.
We’re thinking of cancelling TV and going the Sling, Netflix, Hulu route. Our only issue will be sports. I’m not sure that DH won’t want cable back when baseball season starts.
@shellfell - Sling has ESPN and TBS…and you might try mlb.tv and see if there’s something there that would work come baseball season. (I know my H is always tempted to buy, but hasn’t as yet…)
we too pay $200+ a month for all 3 features; and that’s the “bundled” price. The main reason i dont look at switching over is because my email address is associated with our provider and it would be a hassle to change it.
I would like to get rid of our home phone, but dont want to do that until the youngest is older. I feel like the home phone is a safety feature.
sports is another reason for not canceling cable. And slow internet drives us all bonkers.
i think we are sort of stuck unless we really want to change.
We just did this. It was painful. I don’t see any easy way to compare because they keep changing up the deals.
Our biggest problem was Internet alone was more expensive than a bundled Internet/Cable package. Otherwise we would have pulled the cable and used our antenna (bought for $60) which gets 50 channels most HD for free.
Long story short we went with Verizon Fios as a “new” customer. Total bill after buying their darn router for $200 ended up being around $76 a month after fees and taxes for cable with 2 additional program packs. They are giving us free HBO at the moment so that’s nice but not necessary. Good for 2 years so happy with that.
We also share the kids Netflix which we don’t use often.
We got rid of the home phone and are glad to have done so. One less thing to check.
My cell phone bill (2 smart phones) with no contract is $54 a month after taxes and fees (consumer cellular) and happy with that. Can probably find cheaper but reception has been good so good with that.
Claremontmom - I’m aware of which sports channels are on Sling. We won’'t get mlb.tv since we live in the local area for DH’s favorite team which means mlb.tv blacks out their games. Cable TV is the only way he can watch them.
We ditched the bundle over a year ago, dropped the landline, DTV, upped the internet speed with comcast, already had netflix anyway, have the antenna for free to air. No one watches sports of significance, and my family cell bundle is really a bargain through tmobile for four people with 5 g high speed data each and unlimited call and text, since netflix and radio streaming doesn't count to data cap, no one notices data on a normal day to day basis. I suspect we saved $100 a month once we factored in the high speed internet. We have a google voice number so the home phone works assuming there is internet, we have very very rare service loss. I can only remember one period actually. I think fiber will come close to our home soon enough, as one company had a rep out talking it up, that might keep comcast competitively priced.
@bgbg4us …I am basically the same as you. I don’t want to get rid of the phone line either, though DH wants to. I feel it is a safety issue…plus, I hate talking on my cell phone…hate it. Sports is another biggy with 3 guys in the family! I was reading the sling TV only works on one TV at a time…which wouldn’t work for us. I guess I’m just not tech savvy enough to have 4 different things going on at once. It baffles me. If you disconnect cable, we have to take back all the equipment, too. I want to just plug the damn thing in, too.
I really should just sit down one day and try to figure something out.
My cell phone is almost worthless in my house, so I keep the landline. I’ve cut out SHowtime and HBO with ATT. About once a year, I call to complain of charges, and see if there is a lower package.
I hate all this too! The taxes are another mystery component, and the salespeople can never tell you what they will be. I despise paying for DirecTV and tell everyone there will be an antenna up the day after H’s funeral. I’m not kidding. Our problem is we are 50 miles from the nearest broadcast channel and would need a really good antenna with a rotor to pull in anything. We would then get 3 channels (plenty for me)
Our internet speed stinks (maxs at speed of 5…) and for this I pay Frontier exactly the same as the customers who truly do get high speed. H does call Directv and get the “retention specialist” and some discount for 12 months, rinse, repeat. We do not have HDTV or DVR.
80% of my landline calls are telemarketers and I’d drop it in a heartbeat, but I waver because I do have clients also use that line.
I get the ads from TWC for their bundled service. When I went to their store for more info, I found out it would cost more than I pay now for internet and satellite. (I have 2 DVRs). I have cut the Dish bill in half and have Netflix, and Hulu on Roku. We dumped the landline a few years ago, but still pay T-Mobile $180 for 4 cell phones with unlimited data. My goal this year is to cut the cord completely from Dish. We pay around $380 for internet, satellite, cell phones and streaming services. The prices are obscene.
We are stuck too. Someone (not me) needs ESPN and other sport channels and we need a landline as the in-laws hear better on it than they do a cellphone. What a racket!
I have a NetTalk Duo for my VOIP home phone. Costs me less than $39/year (can’t remember exact price as I paid for a multi-year plan). Have never had a problem with phone service other than the usual VOIP doesn’t work if internet/power is down. However, many “landline” services are switching to VOIP under the covers. To me it’s worth $39/year to not have to switch my seemingly thousands of loyalty cards attached the the number, and also to have a number to give people I want to do business with but I don’t want calling my cell phone.
We had TimeWarner cable and internet. When the promotional pricing ran out, Time Warner would not cut rates enough, so we switched to ATT Uverse/Dish Network. So far they’ve renewed promotional pricing every time our deal runs out, so I’ll stay with them for now.
Would love to cut the cord entirely, but Sling right now doesn’t totally fulfill the sports need, we’re out of range for antennas to work well, and I need my BBC America…
We have Google Fiber internet and tv. Works great and is much cheaper than TWC. I’m not giving it up as long as that’s the only way to watch local baseball. It doesn’t offer telephone so our landline is Magic Jack which is going to be the next thing to go because now that my parents are gone not too many people call the landline. Although come to think of it the real people who call it are all my relatives so maybe I’ll hang on to it a little longer.
We have TMobile–4 lines with 2.5gb each @ $100+tax, no contract. We have a landline and DSL line at a speed of 20 for just over $60. We have very basic cable (about 12 channels) $20/months. We will restart prime soon, but mainly for shipping, since we rarely watch TV or movies. We could switch and get everything with either cable company or phone company and save some $$$, but we like the hard wired landline that we would lose if we went with either of those packages.
I really dislike trying to talk to these companies as well and do it as infrequently as possible.
We used to be paying over $225/month for Sprint for 4 lines with unlimited data and “free” iPhone 5 in 2 year contract. We were happy when that ended but got no discount on phone lines or any incentive to stay.
I just did this and it was a terrible experience. Had wowway but had to switch because we wanted Spanish language channels which they don’t have. Put it off because we had TIVO which I LOVE but is not compatible with either Comcast or AT&T.
Went with AT&T and it was a terrible experience. They messed absolutely everything up. Ported the wrong telephone numbers so nobody could call us for 2 weeks. We were told that what they could do is give us a temporary number until it was fixed. Seriously? Would they also tell everyone that may call us in that time what the number is? Didn’t put the HD channels on until I called to complain. Uverse is much worse than TIVO. It’s going to be much more than just a learning curve. Things are still not working right and it’s been almost a month. Meanwhile, we’re paying more than we did to Wowway.
But we have Sesame Street in Spanish so I’m stuck with it.
Looking at my Cox bill now. It’s about $205. TV= $124, Cable = 63, Telephone = 32. Then they subtract about $35 for ‘bundle savings’. Then they add on taxes and fees. The TV tax is $7, the telephone tax is $16.50!
I love my landline. I think it’s safer, has better sound, and I love the extensions all over the house. Plus, it’s the best way to call overseas (my sister). Cox is really, really, good at weeding out telemarketing calls too. But I’m paying almost $50 a month for it? Hmmmmmm.
The high speed internet is great too.
The TV cost - well, I almost never watch TV. I do like HBO and Showtime but I mainly watch them on an iPad while I exercise. Starz is only $5/month. I rarely watch Netflix, but the kids use it a LOT (and fight over it, since only 2 people can be watching at once).
I would like the networks, PBS and maybe 5 cable channels for rare/occasional viewing and HBO, Showtime and STarz for everything else. No sports or extra languages or anything else needed. I feel like I need to start weeding!