As time has passed, I’ve been considering “cord cutting” and cancelling our DirecTV service. There’s more and more compelling services available and we’ve been finding ourselves only watching locals, sports, weather, and, during Christmas, Hallmark. My last DirecTV bill was over $200 and included $46 in equipment services (DVR, protection plan, and receivers), $100 for the base plan, $27 for regional sports, and $49 for Sunday Ticket. Even if I no longer subscribe to the Sunday Ticket, I’m still at $176.91. In addition, I found out that our DirecTV service was increasing in cost.

In addition, we were paying for Amazon Prime, Amazon Music Unlimited, and Netflix.

So, I spent a few months investigating our services and came up with the following plan:

  • YouTube TV: $49.99 + Tax
  • Disney+, ESPN+, and Hulu: $12.99 + tax
  • Netflix: $12.99 + tax
  • Amazon Prime: $119 + tax (annual)

I also purchased Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K devices for each of the televisions. They’re currently $49.99 each, but on Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday, they tend to go on sale for $20-$35 each. I also purchased a 1 TB Amazon Fire TV Recast device. This is a DVR for anything that can be streamed from an antenna. So, while I got this device for a great price during the holiday season ($100 off), you can go with the smaller, 500 GB version bundled in a Fire TV Stick 4K + Recast Bundle which includes an HD Antenna for $249.97 right now. I’d also recommend ensuring you have proper bandwidth through your provider as well as a great wireless solution. I happen to use the Netgear Orbi Tri-Band Mesh system and love it. So, if I take the Amazon Prime plus the upfront hardware and calculate that out as a monthly cost with tax, I’d be at $33.04. The services plus tax are $80.53 per month for a total monthly cost of $113.56.

In the end, DirecTV said they’d be willing to give me $50 credit per month for 12 months. Assuming I’d cancel the Sunday Ticket and decide to cancel both Amazon Prime and Netflix (which I wouldn’t), I’d still be paying more.

Based on what we spent in 2019 with DirecTV, I’m estimating that we’ll save, including the money spent on the hardware to get the streaming setup in place, $780 over the next twelve months and $1050 each subsequent year.