IN THIS CHAPTER

Figuring out the shows you want and equipment you need

Making a budget

Test-driving your cable-free life

Cutting out cable once and for all

This book is your complete guide to cutting the cord of your cable subscription. At this early stage of the journey, your head might be filled with questions: “Can I get there from here?” “Where do I start?” “What's the next step?” “Is it normal to be talking to myself like this?”

Excellent questions all, and this chapter is where you get some answers. Think of this chapter as a map with a big, bright line marking the path to take. Yep, sure, the path meanders a bit, but the seven steps you learn about in this chapter will lead you from wherever you are now to a life that's gloriously cable-free.

As the philosopher once said, the map is not the territory. The steps you read about here are the bird's-eye view of the entire process. You get more details about each step as you progress through the rest of the book.

Step 1: Deciding What You Want to Watch

Psst. Yes, you. Over here. Can I tell you a secret? Can I tell you why some people are happy cord cutters? Sure, everyone's tickled various shades of pink when they first say “so long” to cable. But some folks manage to stay happy even after their cable subscription is a distant memory. What's their secret?

You might think the secret is something esoteric involving a complicated setup and a wide variety of streaming services. Nope. In fact, the secret is the opposite of all that. Ready? Here it is:

Don't try to replicate your current cable lineup.

When people think of cutting the cord, the first path they think of taking is to use streaming services to clone their existing cable channels and content. Is that even possible? Yep, it certainly is, and you're free to go that route if you like. However, duplicating your cable content will almost certainly lead to post-cable dissatisfaction. Why? Because replicating what you have now will probably be more expensive than cable and will definitely be more complicated than cable.

What's the alternative? There are three paths to long-term post-cable happiness:

• Watch a small number of shows.
• Subscribe to a small number of streaming services.
• Go old-school with OTA live TV.

Let's take a closer look at these three options.

Step 2: Figuring Out the Equipment You Need

No matter how you plan to get your TV jollies after you cut the cord, you're going to need some equipment. What you need depends on what you have and what services you're going to use.

I should say that you're probably going to need some equipment because you can stream many TV shows and movies without buying any or much equipment. That is, most services offer apps that enable you to stream content on your smartphone or tablet. I talk more about this in Chapter 6.

Here's a quick equipment list, with pointers to where I talk in detail about each type later in the book:

• Television: I assume you already have one of these. However, you might be in the market for a new TV to celebrate cutting the cord. Good for you! I talk about what to look for (from a cord-free angle) in Chapter 6.
• Internet modem/Wi-Fi router: If you are currently renting a modem/router from the cable company and will be getting your Internet access from a different provider, you'll need to buy one of your own. I give you some buying advice in Chapter 7.
• HDTV antenna: You'll need an antenna to bring in OTA signals to your TV. For lots of info about choosing and setting up an HDTV antenna, check out Chapter 4.
• Streaming device: Lots of services, such as Amazon Fire TV and Roku, give you access to tons of streaming services via apps. For example, Figure 2-1 shows some apps available on the main page of Amazon Fire TV. To get those apps, you need a streaming device, such as set-top box, smart TV, or streaming player. Chapter 6 tells you all about these and other streaming knickknacks.

Step 3: Making a Streaming Services Budget

In Chapter 1, I mention that although cutting the cord to save money is a laudable goal, it's not the only one. Quite a few great reasons to thumb your nose at the cable company exist.

That said, even if saving money is far down your list of reasons to cut the cord, you shouldn't take streaming costs for granted. If you go with only free streaming services (see Chapter 8) or just a few paid services, you probably don't have much to worry about, financially. But note that it's awfully easy and tempting to keep adding new services. It's $10 a month here, $15 a month there, and $5 a month somewhere else. Pretty soon, you're forking out more per month than you did in your cable days.

What's the answer? First, decide how much money you want to spend each month on streaming. That number might be a fraction of your cable costs, or it might be the same as what you now pay for cable. The amount is up to you, but it's important to write that number down and take it seriously to avoid having your streaming costs go through the roof.

What's the best way to respect your streaming cost ceiling? Make a streaming budget. I know, I know: You'd rather get a root canal. I get it. But creating a budget is not that much work. In fact, you already made a good start when you wrote your list of “must-have” content (in Step 1). Add a second column to that list and use it to record the monthly subscription price for each streaming service.

Don’t put your pencil down just yet. You also need to write down the extra cash you’ll likely pay monthly for Internet service:

• If your current Internet service is part of your cable bundle, write down how much your Internet access will go up monthly once you ditch the bundle.
• If your current Internet service comes from another provider, write down how much extra it will cost you per month to increase your monthly data cap to allow for all your extra streaming. (See Chapter 7 for more about the data you'll use while streaming.)

Now what? Two things:

• Add all your costs and make sure the total comes in under the maximum streaming budget you decided on earlier. Did you go over? It can happen so easily with this stuff. Be ruthless and cut services until you get under your cap. You can so this.
• Stay on top of your costs. Update your budget as prices change and you add or remove services.

Step 4: Trying Out Lots of Streaming Services — for Free!

If you're not sure about a streaming service, surf to its home page and look around. You'll get a good sense of what the service has to offer. However, even the best streaming service web page is no substitute for using the service itself. But how do you do that without spending a bunch of money, especially for services you might not like?

Two words: free trial. Every streaming service worthy of the name offers some kind of free trial (see Figure 2-2). The idea is that you sign up for the service and give them your payment info, but the first payment doesn't go through until after the trial period expires.

This gives you a week, a month, or sometimes even longer to ring the service's bells and blow its whistles. Getting hands-on with the service for a while should be enough to let you know whether you want to continue with it after the trial period expires.

I encourage you to sign up for as many streaming free trials as you have time to check out. However, you should know that some risk is involved because every service takes your payment info when you sign up for the free trial, and you might forget to cancel one or two before the trial period ends. You then end up paying for some services you don't want, which is maddening.

One easy way to prevent these unwanted and unnecessary charges is to cancel your account immediately after signing up for it. That sounds weird, I know, but most services still give you full and free access until the trial period expires. You can continue with your trial as usual. Then, at the end of the trial, if you like the service, it's no problem asking them to reinstate your subscription.

Step 5: Subscribing to Streaming Services

Back in Step 1, I had you make a short list of shows or content you wanted to take on your post-cable journey. With your list in hand, the next stage on that trip is subscribing to the streaming services that offer those shows or content.

I talk about paid streaming services in just enough detail in Chapter 9, so that's the place to go to get ready to make your streaming commitments. For now, though, I offer the following pointers, which apply to folks who are new to the streaming business:

• I mention in Step 4 that most streaming services offer a free trial. Even if you're sure you want to become a paid subscriber of a service, it's almost always the right move to sign up the free tryout. In most cases, the trial period is a full month, so you get lots of time to kick the tires to make sure the service is right for you.
• Most streaming services will give you a bit of a discount if you commit upfront to a longer subscription. A typical deal is to offer 12 months of service for the price of 10 months. Committing to a service for a full year makes financial sense if (I repeat, if) you're completely sure you'll be happy with the service that entire time. A year's subscription is a bit of a risk because — let's be honest here — you likely don't know what, streaming-wise, will put gas in your tank. Since you're just getting started with all this, it makes sense to forego that discount for now and stick with a monthly subscription. After a few months, if you love what the service has to offer, they'll be happy to take your money in exchange for a longer commitment.

Step 6: Doing a Cord-Cutting Test Drive

Okay, you're almost there. By this leg of the journey, you know which services you want; your equipment is set up and configured; you're sticking to your streaming budget; you've tried (or are trying) a bunch of free trials for streaming services; and you've possibly subscribed to a few services.

Surely this stage of the path is when you get out your metaphorical cord cutters and break free from the cable company, right? Not so fast! Before you launch your post-cable life, give everything a test drive to make sure it all works as advertised. Call this your pre-post-cable life.

For this test drive to work, you first need to do two things:

• Connect and configure all your streaming equipment.
• Disconnect the cable TV cord. To be clear, I'm talking here about the actual cord that attaches to your TV.

Why disconnect the cord? I suppose it's not strictly necessary. But if you want this test drive to accurately reflect what your TV-watching life will be like AC (after cable), cable TV itself must be off-limits for the duration of the test. If you leave the cable connected to your TV then — admit it — you won't be able to resist the temptation to switch inputs and check out something available on cable that won't be available when you go cable-free for real.

Now you're ready to test-drive your streaming life. For the next week or two (or however long you think you need to give the new setup a fair shake), try out your services, configure settings, and run experiments. This is the time to really push your services to the limit to make sure everything works.

Note that this experiment might not be a perfect test of what you'll experience on the other side of cable. In particular, after you cut the cord, you might decide to opt for a faster Internet connection speed or to upgrade your Wi-Fi. If you plan on doing either (or both), bear in mind that your test-drive experience will be a little slower than your experience after you've made your upgrades.

Step 7: Cutting the Cord —Woo-Hoo!

Well, I'm sure you've been dreaming about this day for a long time, and it's finally here: It's time to call your cable company and cancel your service. It's time, in short, to cut that cord!

I wish I could tell you that the ensuing phone call will be simple, take just a few minutes of your time, and be completely stress-free. Nope, sorry, but this is the cable company I'm talking about. Nothing they do is ever simple, quick, or relaxing.

That's fine. You've got this. To help, the rest of this chapter takes you through the process and offers plenty of tips and advice for getting out the other end with your sanity (relatively) intact.