My family went satellite free in 2011 and we haven't looked back. We purchased one of the first models of the Roku Player and haven't regretted it.
Many people ask if we miss having satellite, and honestly we did at first. Now we are used to the change and couldn't imagine paying more than we are for TV each year. Another nice thing about these services is they all have an app that comes with your subscription. These apps allow you to use your subscription even when you are away from home.
The services that we currently use on our Roku are:
We pay $7.99 for Netflix monthly, $7.99 for Hulu monthly, $99 for Amazon Prime yearly and $20.00 a month for SlingTv. This comes out to roughly $45/month.
I was on trial with SlingTV and liked the service. I had intended to drop another service for it, but after some consideration I will be dropping SlingTV to bring my monthly total back down to $25/month.
SlingTV does offer stations like, HGTV, Food Network, ABC Family and AMC. I found the service to be unreliable and the customer service simply passed the problem on to the individual networks rather than helping me resolve the issue. For a service that makes up almost 50% of my TV budget it just isn't worth it.
Netflix offers up a great variety and is constantly adding new content including original series. My kids use Netflix for a majority of their TV time.
Hulu allows you to watch many networks airings the day after they are played on regular television. I typically turn to Hulu first and watch my favorite shows like Grey's Anatomy the day after they air. Hulu does offer some children's television as well as original content for adults and children. My kids have not really enjoyed the content provided by Hulu.
Amazon is a great choice even if you don't sign up for Prime. You can rent movies through Amazon. If you are like me it takes you DAYS to get the movies returned to the Redbox, so in the end it's cheaper to just pay a little extra and not have to leave your house. Amazon has many series and movies available to watch free with your Prime membership.
Save yourself some money and cut the cord, you'll be glad you did!
