Replace Your Cable with Online Alternatives to Save Money

In these troubled financial times, saving money is important.  People all over are budgeting to save money, and looking for ways to cut costs.  One way that I have found to save money is by getting rid of cable entirely.  How many channels do you currently have on your cable plan?  How many of them do you actually watch? Out of about 150 channels on my subscription, I watched about five regularly.  My cable and internet plan was costing me about $140 a month.  After some research, I found out how to cut my bill by more than half.

First and foremost, you must get high speed internet access, if you don't have it already.  You may already get internet access through your cable provider, like I did.  The important thing to watch out for is if your service provider has any monthly bandwidth caps or download limits, and if so, what these limits are.  You ideally want to use a provider without such limits if possible, especially if you're going to be streaming a lot of video online.

Once you have your connection, all you have to do is go online!  Many of the major networks stream full episodes (usually the most recent) of your favorite shows on their web sites.  In fact, you can find many of your shows in one location: Hulu.com!  Hulu streams many shows directly, or else links to the sites where they are hosted.  You can subscribe to a TV show so that new episodes are placed in a queue for you to watch at your convenience.  They also often have feature-length movies available.  You can even have a wide variety of classic TV shows available for viewing.

This is the bare minimum required for you to ditch cable.  There are several other options available as well.

If you like movies, you'll want to subscribe to a DVD-by-mail program like Netflix or Blockbuster.com, or utilize Red Box.  I personally recommend Netflix.  They have a wide variety of movies available, and a good range of plans for any viewing habit.  But the real draw is the ability to watch movies instantly online (over 12,000 titles).  Unlimited online viewing is available with any of their unlimited DVD plans, even the least expensive one-DVD-at-a-time plan ($8.99).  Even with only one movie at a time, you can watch as much as you want online while you wait for the DVD to come in the mail.  The only real limitation is that some titles aren't always available due to licensing issues, but there is alwasy ample warning before the become unavailable.

If you're not really keen on sitting in front of your computer and letting your 52-inch HD TV go to waste, there are a few ways to watch online programming on your TV.  One way is by connecting your computer directly to your TV.  This is most easily done with a laptop, and requires that you have the proper inputs and outputs for your PC and TV. If you have a PS3, XBox 360, or HP MediaSmart TV, you can stream online content directly to your TV by purchasing a media center program called PlayOn from http://www.themediamall.com.  The program costs $39.99, and works by streaming content from your PC to the device connected to your TV via your home network.  With this program you can watch Netflix and Hulu, as well as video from several major network web sites.  The program currently has a few limitations.  A major one for me is the apparent inability to seek forward while watch Netflix movies.  When I tried it it had a tendency to freeze the stream.  Also for Hulu, PlayOn seems to only be able to access videos that Hulu streams directly, not any external videos it links to.  So you can watch The Daily Show, which Hulu hosts, but you can't watch South Park, which is hosted by http://www.southparkstudios.com.

There are other options for watching Netflix directly on your TV.  If you have an XBox 360, TiVo, or certain models of network-enabled BD players (go to Netflix.com for mor specifics) you already have this ability.  Another option (and the one I use) is the Roku digital video player.  This small device (about the size of a cable modem) uses either a wired or wireless connection to stream movies from Netflix and Amazon on Deman to your TV.  It's easy to set up an use, and it costs only $99, making it an affordable choice if you don't already own one of the other Netflix-capable devices.

Most of these solutions for watching online video on your TV (except when directly hooked up to a PC) will require you have a home network set up.  You can buy a decent wireless router for around $50-$60.  For help setting up a home network, you can consult your router's documentation, or look online, probably here on Buksia.

It may seem like you're only spending more money by buying a router or a Roku player or special software, but you will save more money in the long run.  I used to pay $140 for HD cable and 8Mbps internet.  By switching to an internet-only plan and watching Hulu and Netflix, my bill went down to $57, plus my $9 Netflix subscription.  The money I've saved has already paid for the router, Roku, and PlayOn, as well as a wireless network card for my desktop PC (see the notes below). This will save me over $1000 in the course of a year.  As an added bonus, I find that I don't watch TV as much, and don't waste time aimlessly flipping channels anymore.  This plan is a viable way to trim your budget during tight financial times.

Notes:

• If your ISP offers plans with different connection speeds, spring for the fastest one you can get, if you can afford it.  It will increase your streaming speed, and in the case of Netflix movies, your video quality.
• If you're going to watch online videos on your TV, I recommend using a wired connection to hook up your video device to your network instead of connecting wirelessly.  A wired connection is more reliable than a wireless signal, which is important if you want to stream HD movies without having to pause to rebuffer every ten minutes.  If you cannot conveniently connect your desktop PC in this situation, you can buy a wireless network card fairly inexpensively.
• IMPORTANT: Make absolutely sure that your ISP does not have bandwidth limits or download caps before you start.  This could result in extra charges from your provider, which negates the purpose of this plan, or even get your account canceled if they decide you're using your connection excessively.  Read your terms of service carefully.
• This plan is mostly for people who are already spending a lot of money for both cable and internet.  If you only watch basic cable and are satisfied with your internet speed, it may actually be cheaper to stay with your cable subscription, depending on your provider.  For people with a lot of extra channels and movie tiers on their cable plan though, there are definite savings to be had.