How to Save on Home Entertainment Costs

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Home entertainment costs are something people should pay more attention to.

Growing up, my parents always had the largest cable package, complete with all the fancy channels like HBO and Starz (they were a super luxury back then!). As a kid, even before the “cord cutting revolution” started, I found it silly to have a cable subscription. Why do you need 200+ channels when you only watch 10 or 15 of them? My 10-year-old brain racked itself over and over with questions. Why pay for cable when you have DVDs and other forms of entertainment?

I walked up to my parents one day and told them they needed to cancel their cable subscription. Their reaction? What? No! We NEED cable! Then they proceeded to tell my how I would have to give up all my kid shows if they cancelled cable. I wouldn’t want that, right? No. To prove them wrong, I went over a month without watching any of my kid shows on the Disney Channel in order to show I could survive without cable (who would have thought?!).

At the end of my month without cable, they commended what I did, but still continued with their cable subscription.

Whenever people are looking to cut expenses, the first thing the personal finance world says is to cut cable. And for good reason, it’s probably the priciest thing on your home entertainment expenses. But what about people who don’t want to cut cable? How do they lower home entertainment costs while still staying part of the cord?

I have a confession to make, I’m a cord never. I bet you don’t hear that term a lot. It means I’ve never been a subscriber to cable. I don’t think I ever will be a cable subscriber, despite what the cable industry thinks.

Below are some possible ways to go about saving on home entertainment costs.

Antenna + streaming player (cutting the cord)

This is a popular option. You can get an antenna for your TV to be able to watch local channels (FOX, ABC, CBS, etc) and then use a streaming player (Roku and Amazon Fire Stick are popular options).

Once you get these items, you pick out which streaming platforms to subscribe to.

• Netflix (per month: $7.99 for basic, $9.99 for standard, $11.99 for top package)
• Hulu (per month: $7.99 basic, ad-supported, $11.99 ad-free)
• Amazon Prime ($8.25 a month, billed annually at $99)
• Sling TV ($20 per month, $5-15 per month extra for add-ons)
• Vudu
• iTunes
• Crackle

Thoughts on how to save money with this route: People still know Hulu has a free option, right? As long as your okay with waiting a week or so for episodes to come out, you can rid yourself of the $8-12 per month cost.

Netflix. When signing up for Netflix, it defaults to the $9.99 per month middle plan. Do you really need that though? Consider whether you are able to opt for the $7.99 per month (1 stream) plan rather than the $9.99 per month (2 stream) plan.

Streaming player: Many recommend a Roku 2 or 3 when getting a streaming player. The cheaper Roku stick will do just fine. Save $20-40 bucks).

Look at your cable bill closely + cut what you don’t need

Did you know I used to work for a cable company? Yep, I did. More on that in a later post :). Since I worked at a cable company, I know first hand how they would upsell people.

Get home phone service free for 12 months! HBO and Showtime free for six months! Two-year price lock guarantee! 

Can you guess what would happen? People would sign up and get these promotional offers, then the promotional offers would end and people would forget to cancel them and continue to pay for the extras.

I know so many people who had $20-30 charges for home phone service they never used. Look at your bill and cut what you don’t need.

You don’t need as much internet speed as you think

It’s worth mentioning again, I used to work at a cable company and would see people get super fast internet packages when they would have been perfectly okay with a lower, and less expensive, package.

5mbps download speed is needed to run Netflix smoothly. If you’re a single person or a couple, you can get by with the 6mbps download package many companies provide. If you have a family of 4-5, you can get by with about 18mbps or 25mbps download speed that companies provide.

You don’t need a Smart TV

Seriously, it’s usually cheaper to just buy a regular flatscreen+streaming player rather than buying a Smart TV.

I mentioned above how I am a cord-never. Well, there was one time I did have cable. During my 2nd year of college, I lived in an apartment where cable and internet was included. I used the cable a grand total of one time during the entire year I lived in the apartment.

Now I use Netflix+Amazon Prime (which I got at a discounted price of $49 per year). As of this writing, I only have Amazon Prime. I took a different approach with my Netflix, I only sign up when I need it. Only a few months out of the year (three or six months) I pay for Netflix. I started doing this a while back after noticing I only used my Netflix when my favorite shows premiered (Orange is the New Black, Arrested Development, etc).

How do you save on home entertainment costs? What tools+products do you use? 

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Colin // RebelwithaPlan

Colin Ashby is the writer behind Rebel with a Plan, a website dedicated to people who choose to rebel against the norm of living in debt and feeling financially unenlightened. He believes everyone has an eccentric quality to embrace and that lattes are sometimes a necessity (despite what the personal finance community tells you).

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