It wasn’t an epiphany really. The decision to fire our TV service provider was more a realization over time, but a co-worker triggered it. My wife and I, like so many others, were looking at trimming our bills. During the exploration of what expenses to cut, DirecTV kept coming up but we didn’t want to change our package to a less expensive option. Ours was an old one they no longer offered, and we got great bang for our buck; or were we?

We got to this point through a monthly budget meeting we have. Our financial advisor, Dave Ramsey, has shown us how to truly live debt free. In our quest to do so, decisions like this need to be made from time to time. It’s not that we can’t handle $150 (on average) a month, it’s more like why do we need it? Why do we need 300 channels of TV? Don’t we watch too much as it is?

We are marketed to by how many channels are served up to us, but how many do we really watch? This is where we started. With the advent of smart TV, Apple TV, Amazon Fire, ROKU and other connected viewing, we looked whether we really needed cable anymore. To be fair, it was an odd discussion. At first, it sounds like joining the anti-TV crowd. This isn’t what we thought of, but it came to mind. Would people we spoke to about this think we are some beatnik hippies? Don’t get me wrong; I appreciate those people and how they can be resolute with their beliefs. Society does watch far too much television, but like anything else, moderation is key. This is where my thought process kicked in; could we get away from a satellite provider, keep watching TV, just less of it? The way I rationalized it was I would be more purposeful when watching the tube. Instead of mindlessly flipping around for something to watch, I’d seek out content I really want to consume. Of course, the driving force was simply financial. Don’t be mistaken, $150 a month is a cost we can afford. The question is do we need to spend it? It’s like car payments. Can we afford them? Absolutely, but why would we? It doesn’t make sense. To be honest, I like the thought of owning a Tesla, and I know we can afford it. However, stepping back, I know it’s not in the cards right now as we have other things we’re saving for. This is where we brought it back to. Can saving $150 a month help us achieve our goals quicker? You bet.

Now, we made financial sense of this sort of decision. The question now becomes what sort of content can we get and conversely, what content will we miss out on. So, we explored what we watch together and what we watch on our own. For example, I like The Walking Dead, but I know my wife doesn’t. She likes the Kardashians, and I don’t. We both like Major Crimes. We explored how we can get these shows. As it turns out, they aren’t easily accessible with most Internet based options. We quickly turned to equipment, because with so many competing devices, we could explore the shows/networks we could get. This is where it starts to get a bit crazy. We already owned an Apple TV. We already have Amazon Prime, as we’ve used it for shopping for many years. We also had an Amazon Fire Stick. We didn’t have any app subscriptions however. Since the broadcast networks offer an antenna based signal, we looked at an antenna and a DVR for this antenna. As soon as the search began, a rapid realization was made; there is much to learn about this. We found websites that deal with broadcast signals, locations and more. We found repositories for all online content, and who offers it. It was quite overwhelming, but once you wade through the vastness of the Internet, you realize all of these helpful people have done this before, and you can learn from their experiences.

Since we had the Apple TV, Amazon Prime and Amazon Fire Stick, we didn’t need more connectivity. Our modem and WiFi range extender were just OK, and so was our existing broadband speed. We thought we should keep those as-is. Once we start to push our connection, we could explore new Internet gear if necessary. Also keep in mind our desire for good quality service and even higher quality customer service. The local companies are less than desirable, so we have to choose between the evil of two lessers in terms of Internet service

After a few weeks of thorough research, we landed on equipment to buy. The cost of the equipment pays for itself in just a few months. We decided on an Amazon Basics 60 mile antenna. It was a bit pricey at about $100, but it gave us good range. We looked at DVR options a bit closer since they differ in options and price. At the end of the day, we went with a Channelmaster DVR+. It just so happens when we wanted to buy it, they ran a sale for $50 off. We got the 16GB version, because we had an extra drive to use for the media. It ran $199 that day, but it’s usually $250. Total cost for TV freedom equipment, $300.

At the same time as all of this, we wanted to also change our home phone service to a free option. Our good friends had recommended a device from OBI Talk that uses Google Voice as the service, but it runs as a home phone. Unfortunately, Google Voice doesn’t port landlines to it’s service. So, through the help of a zdnet.com tutorial, we ported our number to a burner phone, then to Google Voice. The cost of the OBI Talk Obi200 was $48, and the cost of porting including the phone was $45. This device can also travel with us anywhere in the world and still get out home number calls. So, for about $100, we cut out Vonage, which was about $18 per month. So, this pays for itself in 5 months.

Now, all of the gear has been delivered, but it’s sitting in boxes. The hesitation sits in. Yes, I know we purchased everything, and even setup up the phone. We can still back out though. Do we really want to miss out on some of our favorite shows? I’d miss AMC, my wife will miss the stuff on Bravo, and our daughter won’t miss anything. She won’t miss out, because she really only watches the Disney channel. It just so happens that we can get Disney, ESPN, and other similar apps without incurring another subscription cost. We don’t need to subscribe to Sling. Yes, we will sacrifice, but in the end, it will be worth it, right? How much sport will I miss? Well, we can subscribe to NHL and/or MLB if we want. We don’t need TV service for that. Remember that local TV we still get from the antenna? Many of our Packers and Bears games are on national often enough. For the other games, we have friends and sports bars with the Sunday Ticket.

It was time to put the antenna on the roof and try for a signal. This was the first step. No go. It doesn’t work. How could this go so horribly wrong? All of this work in the 120º F attic seemed all for naught. It turns out that a run of about 50 feet to the 4-way splitter is rather long. After a quick trip to Radio Shack (apparently still in business) to get a $40 amp, we have signal! Let’s see how many channels we can really get. It just so happens we get close to 70 channels! Wow, 70 channels! That’s great, right? If we spoke Spanish, liked to shop from TV and loved religious stations, we could get full use of these 70 channels. In reality, we get about 25 viewable channels, which isn’t bad. After some tweaking to the antenna, we have a good balance of signal; we just need to adjust a bit more. Next, is the DVR. This thing is small. It’s about ¾” thick and not very wide, maybe 8”. The USB hard drive we hooked up, had to format and it was ready to rock. The guide is just like any other DVR, the recording options are the same too. We set a test and it worked flawlessly. The Amazon Fire Stick is already in place so we just move the Apple TV to the living room. We now have a connected TV. All the apps work fine and signals are stable.

We needed some subscriptions in place. First, we get Netflix. It’s about $8 a month. Hulu Plus seems intriguing. The week long trial shows us they have many older, yet good, TV shows. It seems that once we’ve watched the shows we want to see, we won’t keep the $8 subscription. A few shows we identified as ones we want to see as they air, but we can’t get. Over the weeks and months, we will get an iTunes subscription for these few shows. These range in price, but will run about $30 each season. Our monthly cost is going to be about $16 until we stop Hulu. If we do $100 a year in TV shows, and Hulu for 6 months, we’re looking at about $245 for a year. Throw in NHL GameCenter for $160 and the yearly total is about $400.

Since basic finance and math is the play here, lets explore the numbers. Our DirecTV bill was about $150 a month. However, we subscribed to the NFL Sunday Ticket each year. Around September/October every season, I’d call DirecTV looking for a better than advertised deal on the package. I usually got it down to under $200, but not always. To be conservative, we’ll assume it was $200 a year, which included online access. Our yearly DirecTV cost was running about $2150 per annum. This included 2 DVR boxes and 2 non DVR receivers. With the new setup, we still have 4 TV’s, but only 2 have Internet access. We purchased another Amazon Fire Stick for $24 on July 15th. This one is meant to be portable. When in the pool, move the stick outside. When a guest is in the extra bedroom, they can have more than broadcast networks. So, our new yearly total of $405, pales in comparison to the $2150 we gave them before.

Here is the two-fold payoff. First, the raise we just gave ourselves. The first year, we have some equipment costs. The antenna and DVR setup was $300. The new phone setup was $100. So the first year will be an $800 cost. A total of $2384 has been spent per year on TV and home phone. Against the $2400, the $800 is a great deal. Take away the $400 capital expense; we are at $400 per year in TV costs. The big question is how much have we sent to DirecTV since we became customers in 2002? Drum roll please… $27,950! What?! $28,000?!?!?! That’s INSANE! That’s the GDP of Burundi I think. That’s a whole car! But wait, there are more important benefits. Can you quantify time spent with people you care about? Granted, this has been in place for only a month, but we simply don’t watch as much TV as before. What we do watch is better quality and viewed on our schedule. A TV schedule doesn’t dictate what we do. Over the years we have been letting this idiot box be in charge. No more. No one comes into our house and pushes us around.