As part of the moving process I had to switch over my TV service. Though our family does not spend a huge amount of time watching TV, we really do love the shows we record to our DVR. We have had satellite for almost 10 years so it was automatic for me to call and proceeded with switching my service to the new house. When the installer came to the home within minutes he was able to let us know that the beautiful trees that surround our house would keep us from getting satellite. So now what?

Like most areas we are very limited on our options here in Portland. There are two satellite and one cable companies. This made us reevaluate our television needs. What did we really need and how much did we need to spend for it?

Local channels
Seldom do we watch live TV. We have all of our favorite shows recorded on our DVR and then watch them days or sometimes even months later. The only time we watch live TV is in bed in the morning and evening when we watch the news, for sporting events (though we only watch the big games since we are not huge sports fans) and on Sunday mornings when we are reading the paper and watching the home and cooking shows.

Most of our live TV watching could be solved by purchasing a strong antenna to get a signal from beyond our trees. For those who are like me and have not watched TV through an antenna for years I must describe how it is now. When I grew up we had two (three if we were lucky) channels to watch and they were not very good. Now with HD each network has approximately three channels which all have different shows. We now get about 20 channels through our antenna for free and the picture is incredible! My watching news in the morning and evening is actually better than what I had when I had dish because now I have HD whereas before I did not want to pay for the service in my bedroom.

iPad and Blu-Ray
The majority of our TV time is spent watching shows that we recorded. I was surprised by how easy it was to set it up so we could watch all of the shows and movies we wanted. We purchased a subscription to Netflix and Hulu Plus. For Netflix subscription which provided instant movies and shows along with them sending a DVD in the mail it costs us $9.99 and for the Hulu Plus is costs us $7.99 per month.

My original thought was that I could just plug in my iPad to the receiver and watch all of the shows and movies we wanted. This thought does work great and it cost me just $39.99 for the wires to do this from the Apple Store.

Still, while I was at BestBuy asking them some other questions I asked if there was a better way to achieve this without having to plug in my iPad. “But of course there is” the sales person said. He introduced us to the idea of using a Blu-Ray player to watch our Netflix and Hulu picks. The Blu-Ray plugs into our DSL and anytime I add something to our instant queues they automatically show up on the Blu-Ray. It’s amazing!

We have gone from paying $105 a month to paying $18. We feel so cutting edge!

Our initial costs were:
$85 for the really good antenna that could reach beyond our trees
$100 for the Blu-Ray Player
For a total of $185

So how long does it take for me to make up this costs?

I was able to get Netflix and Hulu free for the first month so first month I’m saving $105, that means that within the 2nd month I’m already saving costs because I only have $80 remaining to make up and the monthly amount I’m saving is $87.

$87 a month savings and I’m pretty sure I’m going to be happier with the setup!