Cable Television costs have increased to the point where many subscribers are starting to look for alternatives. It felt really good dropping my TV service, and pulling those cable boxes out for good. Here is a simply cut the cable guide.

The time spent watch TV is now much more content oriented, and not mindless channel surfing, or endless commercial breaks.

According to a Wall Street Journal report, the average cable TV subscriber pays $78 a month TV programming alone (not including internet). When add that up for a full year, it is $936 per year (12 months x $78 per month).

If you have a fast internet connection, you will probably find that most of the content coming from Cable TV can be found from an online source. Currently live sports broadcasts are usually the biggest road block to overcome when ditching cable TV.

If you can get over a dependence on cable sports, you can save a lot of money. Most local sports teams should be available with an over the air (OTA) antenna. You will have to miss some sports that is only on ESPN, or the NFL network; you have to ask yourself is it worth around $1,000 per year to watch a handful of sporting events?

After about a full month of researching antenna’s, amplifiers, wiring, cables, and everything that goes with mounting an antenna, I spent $150 on everything needed to put a quality antenna on my roof.

The antenna cost $78, per-amplifier cost $30, the mounting bracket was $16, and another $18 to have it shipped. A few hours of time on a Saturday morning, and it was installed. I am on the outer edge of the reception range of many stations, so the reception isn’t totally perfect all the time, but it works well enough for our needs, and we get about 15 channels consistently.

Over the air TV is actually rarely even used in our house, it is mostly Netflix, followed by Amazon prime. We also bought a yearly subscription to the Hallmark channel. All of these are available on the Xbox 360. The Xbox is the main device used to watch content. I also have a Plex server setup which streams any other content to any TV or device inside the house.

If we didn’t already have the Xbox 360 with the Live Gold membership I would go with the Roku steaming player, which offers a ton of content, and ranges from $49 for the base model, and $100 for the top of the line model.

Many online stories talk about how much it “costs” to cut the cable, but chances are you have almost everything you need. If you live near a major metro area, you can use a simple indoor antenna and probably get all your network channels that way, then spend $100 on a Roku device, and you are all set.

In summary, we spend about $20 a month now on all our streaming services, and I do not miss cable TV one bit. We probably rent a few more movies via Amazon now, but it’s still well worth it to get rid of a fixed monthly cable bill. The end of commercials (mostly), and the end of mindless channel surfing are some great added benefits. Cutting cord is also about changing habits, instead of plopping down in front of the TV with the remote and looking for something to watch, it is more of active process, of knowing what you want to watch, and knowing what online service it is available on.

So what are you waiting for? Cut the cable!