Perfect Accuracy

2seaoat wrote: would you please outline what you have learned and share . . . . . ???

Our direct TV bill was getting close to $140 per month for a couple special channels, HBO, and the basic cable channels.  We often would lose coverage during storms, and then saw our daughter's direct TV bill was $225 with almost all the channels.   It was an addiction costing $1,800 a year.

We had put up a 35 foot flagpole a couple years ago, so our first step was to put up a directional antenna on our flagpole.  We can now get our local channels through digital free signals rather than direct tv, but the best part is we get metv, grit tv, laff tv, and other specialty tv for free with almost 40 channels to choose.  Next we went to Best Buy and spent $45 for a Roku streaming tv and signed up for Netflix, Hulu, Sling, and HBO.  We upgraded our internet speed for $5 a month, and on a promotion got a second Roku for free.   My wife has one on her TV, and we have one in our family room where I sleep in a lazy boy.  We get all the basic channels like espn, history, AE, cnn, amc, tnt, etc. but the HBO requires watching the programs a day after they are played on regular HBO.  I watch vice news each week day, and our total bill is less than fifty dollars a month, a savings close to $90 a month.  I spend about 60/40 on the streaming with 40 on the free antenna tv and the specialty shows which are mostly tv series from when I was a kid which at this point in my life is very relaxing and fun.  I would recommend to everyone who has a good stream of broadband to cut the cable and direct tv monopoly.   Our experience has been very good except that on the second TV, the ROKU will limit your watching the same program on both TVs.  So my wife can be watching HBO and I can be watching CNN and there is no problem, but if we are both watching CNN one of the roku receivers will shut off the program.  We have adjusted and with almost a hundred bucks a month savings, we have broken our addiction.

We also take the roku reciever to florida for the four months we are down there and watch all the tv without having to get a TV package with the cable company or direct TV saving us another $1,200 a year as we used to have the monthly cost in Florida and in Illinois.  So in our situation our TV addiction was costing us almost $3,000 more than we are now paying.