Here’s my tricks to watching all the TV I want without paying for cable.

Every six months, my cable provider raised my bill by 60%, and every six months, I gave up hours of my night to call my cable provider and threatened to cancel my service unless they gave me another promotional rate.

And then… I actually did.

Over four years ago, I cut the cord to my cable company. To this day, I have saved approximately $4,200, or about $80 every single month. That’s:

-Two steak dinners with my husband… nice wine and dessert included, every month.
-Four tanks of gas in my car (or enough fuel to drive to from my house to Canada and back), every month.
-That’s the cost to cool my house for an entire month in the summer.

$80+ extra in your pocket is serious money.

The best part? I’m not giving up anything

Here’s the scoop.

I was already on one of the lowest cable packages available to save money, and I was paying for 80+ channels that I wasn’t watching anyway because Forensic Files & HGTV is so fond of all day marathons. I still catch my favorite shows (Scandal, Shameless, etc…) and so much more.

You’ve probably heard countless people simply say how much you can save by getting rid of cable, but in the interest of being better than that–I am going explain how I do this every single month: Subscription Services.

Netflix

My favorite for documentaries, non-fiction, movies, and syndicated shows. They usually have full collections of TV shows (every episode of Desperate Housewives & Parenthood, for example), and more current shows too.

The big letdown is that current episodes of shows are not available until the season ends. However, Netflix is advertisement free and their library is massive. Win.

Hulu

The Go-To for current TV shows. Almost very show you can find on cable, you’ll find here the very next morning. They usually keep a few weeks worth of current episodes on demand, plus popular movies and syndicated shows.

You’ve got to pay extra for an advertisement free experience…which I think is a money grab, but that’s another story.

If you watch premiers of episodes, then Hulu is for you.

Amazon Prime Instant Video

They’ve got a good selection of older movies, but their picks aren’t as broad or diverse as Netflix & Hulu. What you lose in selection, you make up with free shipping on Amazon’s website, so I’m satisfied right now…although I don’t find myself streaming from them very much.

YouTube

I never got into watching those cat videos, but I did watch all the presidential debates via YouTube this past election, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and a ton of other things…live.

If it’s something slightly major in pop culture or world events, you can bet that some network will broadcast it live on YouTube for free. Even if it’s not big news, it will still probably end up on YouTube later that day.

Likewise, they often have FULL episodes of entire series of shows on there. Right now i’m watching every episode of Degrassi: The Next Generation (don’t judge me) for free on here because no other service even has it.

Google

Seriously. “Google it”. If there’s something you want to see, you can often search for it on google and find somebody who’s posted it online for free, or at a very lost cost.

Other Tools

There are other apps and products you can grab, such as Sling TV, CrunchyRoll, and plenty of others that offer thousands of television shows, movies, documentaries, and entertainment. Many networks such as HBO also offer the ability to stream their content from their app or website. Check it out!

Make A Smart TV.

You can turn any TV into a “Smart TV” that can stream the internet if you have a WiFi connection and a few dollars for a device such as Roku, Amazon TV, Playstation Vue, Amazon Fire Stick, or many others including video gaming systems.

How they work: You plug them into your coaxle, HDMI, or USB input on your television, and enable the interface on your TV. The device will connect to your wifi and communicate with whatever streaming service you use.

Boom. You’ve got TV.

This means being able to watch anything you want anywhere you want.

Antenna TV.

Yes, rabbit ears are making a comeback! There’s so much TV and most networks such as ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and others that you can get for free…so stop paying for them!

If you have a flat screen tv, or any television made around 2009 or newer…all you need is an antenna. Heck, try putting a paperclip in your cable jack on the television and see what happens…you might grab a channel or two.

Basically…you can keep paying tons of money for television, or you can cut that down to almost nothing. The choice is yours.