This is how much cash we've wasted on cable.
We’ve been trying to figure out where to trim some fat from the budget for a while now. With new credit card debt from vacations, a new car payment, and putting a couple thousand into the other car for repairs, we were feeling tight.
We began to look at alternatives to cable like Hulu, Netflix, and over the air HD. We then realized that we already got Netflix and the Roku, we have fast Internet, and I already got a cheap UHF antenna.
Can we really do this? Getting rid of cable is a hard thing! I grew up with over the air TV and used to visit a friend’s house who had parents that loved him enough to get cable. I spent entire weekends at his house watching MTV and nothing else.
I actually watch very little TV, but I really enjoy the shows that I do watch. I wanted to make sure that I (and more importantly the wife) can still watch all the shows that I want. Can this be done?
Not only can it be done, but I now have more media options at my fingertips than I ever had before. There is a catch. This system that I’m using is a fair amount of work setting up. There is new complication added to recording and watching what you want. There are some shows that I need to pay for no matter what. All will be explained.
Step 1
Take stock of everything that we watch. We opened the old DVR and wrote down everything that gets recorded. We then went to iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon to see what’s available, and how much.
Step 2
Figure out exactly what we are paying now for what we get. $150 a month for cable, Internet, and digital phone. That’s the promo deal! It would normally be $190 a month! $150 a month per year is $1,800 a year. YIKES. I never looked at that before. What I’m not counting is also our cell phone bill, $70 a month. Why am I paying for a cell phone AND a land line again?
Step 3
Figure out what needs to be purchased to make everything work. It turns out that all you need is a computer that can plug into your TV. I got a little lucky since my TV has an DVI port and a couple extra HDMI ports, so I have a choice there. Since I live in a Mac house, I want to stay with Apple. I’ll need a Mac that’s small, powerful, has plenty of hard disk space, and cheap. This Mac will be streaming video podcasts, Hulu, recording over the air HD, and ripping DVDs. Here’s my parts list with description
- Early gen Mac Mini. 1.86 GHz Core 2, 4 GB RAM – $399+$60 (memory) = $459
- 1 TB external HD – $150
- Elgato EyeTV Hybrid – $150
- DVI to HDMI converter via Monoprice – $5
Grand Total in parts: $764
Right away I can see that this is going to be REALLY good for the budget. I haven’t even touched the year amount yet for just cable.
Step 4
Put it all together. The Mini gets Hulu Desktop installed, EyetV software and Handbrake for ripping DVDs. Plug in the DVI to HDMI adapter, install the eyeTV Hybrid (just plug it into the USB), install the TB drive (formatted as Mac OS Extended with journaling)and use it as the data store for iTunes and EyeTV recording, and that’s it. That’s it? That’s it!
Using the built in guide with EyeTV I setup the shows that I want to get over the air. Hulu Desktop lets me watch most of the stuff that I want. iTunes/Amazon covers the rest of the shows that I want at $1.99 per episode.
So let’s sum it all up in yearly cost savings. First year, $50 a month for Internet + cost of parts + shows on iTunes (approx. $120) = $1,469 saving $331. Every year after that, $1,080 in savings. WOOO!
Now I get more content than I ever had before. I never thought that saving money would give me MORE programing.
