Critics to the contrary, cutting the cord does save money:
The biggest savings that I see are no cable box rental (which can really add up for multiple TVs), no HD fee, and no programming taxes.
I subscribe to Neflix, Amazon Prime, Sling, Funimation, and Crunchyroll (plus the Tablo lifetime subscription). While that does add up, it is still cheaper than cable/satellite, plus it gives my family and me the programming that we want to see.
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For me cord cutting equals liberty. Freedom from the contractual tentacles of the cable octopus.
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If you have access to enough OTA, cord cutting saves a TON of money (in many cases could save you over $100/mo.).
I used to live somewhere that had one TV station. Cable TV was very very very cheap there… there wasn’t much of a choice. But if you have access to many OTA channels, cordcutting is the most obvious way to save thousands of dollars over a relatively short period of time.
For us it was more the choice of NOT PAYING for programming we never watch eg. sports programming/espn etc… and considering thats generally a large chunk of the cost of your cable bill I was happy to jettison it. It was sort of offensive paying for something that we would never watch.
While I was at it I got rid of the internet cable box rental and got my own … that saved a ton as well (more so since I got the cable modem for a pittance on a woot.com special, paid for itself in like 2 months)
In my last house, we were surrounded by mountains on all sides, with zero TV reception, so I was forced to go the cable/Sat-TV route. Now, I don’t have that problem, but kept DirecTV because I was used to it. When they wanted to charge me extra for HD (something new subscribers get for free) and then jacked up my bill to over $100/month with no premium channels, it caused me to reevaluate. Most of the channels I watch are the major broadcast networks… I already had Hulu and Netflix subscriptions, so the decision was easy for me.
I suspect cord cutters like us are always looking to save money. Tough to do if you need internet access, but I was able to negotiate a nice 2 year deal with my provider. For home phone, I don’t really need one but I pay only a little over $4/month for a good VoIP service, with virtually unlimited local and long distance calling, with really cheap international rates. Also, I dumped my alarm company of 6 years, after they jacked up my bill to over $53/month and went with a different alarm company at less than half the price with a lot more capability.
Anyway, back to cord cutting, In addition to Hulu and Netflix, The Blaze, , I had Sling TV for a while, but when Playstation Vue became available on the Roku, I switched, upping my cost slightly, but really wanted to get Fox News. If Sling decides to add it to the lineup, I might switch back because of the deal I can get through T Mobile. And speaking of T Mobile, they do have some nice deals for subscribers, giving me frequent movie credits on Vudu, access to MLB for free and some nice other perks. I’m hoping they’ll do a similar deal with NFL games when football season gets into full swing.