Cut The Cord: How I Saved $500 Switching From DIRECTV To YouTube TV

$89. Every month the $89 bill came in for Direct TV, I got more and more annoyed. Mostly because we started service at $50/month during a promotional period and it only seemed to creep up every month after that. After a few months of paying $89 and trying to bargain the price down with customer service on the phone (for what seemed like hours), I was done. It was time to cut the cord. I knew there had to be a more affordable, easy, no contract way to get TV and DVR for less. So I started looking into Hulu Live, Sling TV, and YouTube TV. Based on reviews I read online and from friends who have cut the cord and switched to each of these, I quickly narrowed it down to Hulu and YouTube TV. And when I did the math and realized I could save around $48/month, or $578 over the course of the year, I knew that cutting cable was the only way to go.

Hulu Live vs. YouTube TV

Pricing didn’t sway me one way or another with it being almost identical– Hulu running at $40/month and YouTube at $42/month including taxes and fees, etc. As far as accounts go, YouTube offers six logins, but you can only stream three at a time. Hulu does as well, except it only offers two concurrent streams. The number of accounts wasn’t a big deciding factor for me, but the DVR was. I love being able to record shows and watch them later, so I wanted to still be able to do this. Well I can on YouTube TV because they have an unlimited amount of storage, a perk none of the competition even comes close to. Hulu offers a Cloud DVR with 50 hours of content, or 200 for $15 extra. Final verdict: YouTube TV offers competitive pricing, multiple accounts, has a cloud-based DVR and seems to run seamlessly. So YouTube TV won my business!

Which device to stream it on

Next, I needed to decide which device to stream it on. YouTube TV started off streaming with only a few devices, but that has quickly changed. On Feb 1 it released apps for Apple TV, Roku TVs and other devices like the Ultra box, Streaking Stick, and Express. Hulu Live TV is available on Amazon Fire TVs and Fire TV sticks, Android devices, Apple TV, Chromecast, iOS devices, Macs, PCs, Rokus, Xbox 360 and the Xbox One. When deciding on Roku or Apple TV for my house, I went with the more affordable option to cover all of the TVs in the house. The Roku Streaming Stick and Streaming Stick+ meant I could get the optimal performance on all TVs, especially ones far from the routers in the house. I paid $120 for both Roku Sticks, compared to Apple TV 4K which starts at $179. I love that the Roku remote is easy to use and has volume control on the side too.

Should you cut the cord?

All in all, switching from DIRECTV to YouTube TV was the best decision for getting my TV fix and shows, for less. Even after paying a cancellation fee to DIRECTV, I will save over $500 over the course of the year, never have to worry about the price going up, or sign any kind of contract again. Can you say FREEDOM!