TV and Phone Plans from the past that we all have to get past!

I have been on a quest for many years to simplify and lower the cost of our very expensive cable TV, entertainment and Internet smartphone services. Given the above hardware configuration with multiple TVs without tuners, I had been in a quandary for years.

I have tried many things, from streaming Netflix on DVD players to Netflix snail mail DVDs and so on. First we purchased a DVD player for the bedroom but it is very old and only streams the Netflix queue. Then we bought one for the bathroom that streams a lot of stuff we had never heard of and were not willing to pay for in addition to Netflix and Cable. Upon further investigation, it is amazing and as good as Roku with firmware and app updates. It now streams thousands of shows with many options from which to choose.  However, I admit that took a bit of work on my part.

I have seen many crazy things over the years, such as my wife buying DVDs at Redbox while we were able to stream and get DVDs from Netflix and so on. The re-evaluation/transition of entertainment technology that has taken place in the last six years has been astronomical and you need to take/make a note of the change and consider your options. The change has happened so fast you need to educate your family on what is available and how to get at it before you continue to spend money on the way things used to be.

For example, my mother uses Direct TV and I have also looked at Dish TV for her and us. Because I have many large trees nearby these satellite services were never an option for my family and changing things for my mother was a bad idea unless the savings is huge, which it was not. However, being the miser (Grinch I am), I hate her giving away money to Verizon when I could get her so much more for less. For example, I would like to get her an unlimited $45 Straight Talk or AT&T Go plan at Walmart with a smartphone instead of her VERY EXPENSIVE Verizon plan using a very old talk only cellphone. She is paying that while maintaining a land line! Her phone bills are near $100 a month and she hardly ever even uses her phones. She is 78 and does not want to change.

I have also contemplated the advantages of universal AT&T DSL versus broadband from my local cable TV providers. Once a year I have had to call on my local cable provider to renegotiate our contract getting such things as free DVR rental for a year, which has been very tiresome. All I have ever wanted was a good universal entertainment/Smartphone/Internet/Household option that did not cost hundreds of dollars a month and simplified our lives. Reducing the cost of renting cable equipment is an annual phone call event that all Americans don’t need in their lives. There are M-Type Cable cards that can free us from expensive cable bills but this is a roll of the dice at best with your local cable provider.

As a result of my cable bill going nuclear expensive (for basic cable and Internet), I have spent years researching how to reduce this bill and still provide the same or more entertainment, news, weather and other coverage options.  I approached this task willing to spend any amount of money (within household reason [no more $1200 plasma TVs]) on hardware with a long term vision of saving a few dollars in the long run. Many of us live month to month and cutting the cable cord to save up the money for new equipment makes a lot of sense if we can do it.

Why do I want to keep my 5 TVs, please let me explain, my household is one of those crazy places where I have TVs are needed everywhere to watch the news, stock market and so on. In years past, three of them did not have digital tuners and things needed to change.

For example, I have a computer lab where I had a very old CRT TV that I like to have on for background noise as silence and the radio does nothing for me.  It is great to be distracted by the occasional TV event or story before you get back to some serious work. I was paying $3.00 a month for this privilege plus the energy cost.