Our DirectTV bill came this week. Ouch! The monthly charge is up to $125/month! When we first signed back in 2009, we were on a 2-year “deal” where the first year we paid $79/month – the second year $99/month.
It stayed pretty steady, then rapidly climbed to over $125 in 2013. I called and got it lowered by doing a whole home DVR package for a year. The price stayed at $99 for a year.
Where we live, we don’t have access to a cable system. That means either paying the extortionate price that DirectTV is asking or getting into the same cost spiral with Dish Network.
What we’re looking to do is get a Simple TV over the air DVR, an external HD TV antenna and an extra hard drive for the DVR. The start up costs are about $575 for the equipment. We own it. No more monthly box fees!
We have Amazon Prime, so we can stream quite a lot through that for free. We will probably subscribe to Netflix and Hulu Plus. So, our new monthly subscription total is $25! (This includes the monthly equivalent for what we pay for Amazon Prime)
The savings from ditching the dish will cover the equipment charge in about 5 months. To me… it’s a no brainer!