Reasonable Cost for TV/Cable/Satelite?

[mtshastawriter]

I'm just wondering what other people pay each month for watching TV?

We have no access to cable here and our Dish Network bill runs about $160 once they add all the taxes and junk to it. I think it's insane to pay that for TV, but I have a disabled husband who can't do much other than watch TV or spend time on the computer...

What do you all pay for TV?

[swamp]

About $130 a month for digital cable, high speed internet, and digital phone package.

[Gardening Grandma]

We pay $75/mo for Direct TV. That doesn't include HBO or Showtime, but it does get a lot of channels. $5 of that is for HD.
We also pay $9.99 for Netflix - that gets us one DVD out at a time and unlimited streaming.

We seem to have plenty of entertainment...

[constanz22]

I think mine is pretty reasonable. I pay $72 a month for "expanded basic" cable (about 70 stations) and high speed internet. When I was trying to find more money to pay off debts, I cut back to "basic" which gave me all the regular network stations and a few more. Regular basic with internet ran about $40 a month. I could live with the basic if I could only get a handful of other stations like HGTV and YES (Yankees Network), maybe TLC and A&E, and I'd be fine. I still don't watch the majority of the stations I get.

ETA- I do not have a cable box/DVR. That'd add another $12 or so a month. Not really worth it to me...

[rileyoday]

Cancelled Direct TV ( 49.00 }

Digital antenna gets me NBC FOX CBS CW for free very clear.
small antenna mounted in the basement.

Netflix streaming 10.00
Hulu plus 8.00

frontier internet 32.00

[Deleted]

We pay about $100 to Directv. That includes the receiver charges for 3 extra televisions (the primary one is included). Right now we are getting all the premium channels because of a package that we signed up for for six months. It expires 3/15. We will cancel it on 3/12. But that's the same cost that we had for one premium channel, which is what we will have when we cancel the other one.

My husband is retired and watches a lot of tv. I don't worry about it since he also reads three newspapers every day plus builds models and works crosswords. When it was just me, I cut back to a more basic package, but it was still around $60 because of the multiple tv's and hd service.

My daughter laughs at the number of tv's I now have since they didn't even have one in their rooms growing up. But we didn't have all these extra rooms I seem to have now. We have tv's in the bedroom, family room, sunroom, and "pool hall." And we watch tv on at least three of them every single day depending on the season.

[midjd]

We had Dish for the last year, I HATED them... price kept creeping up for no apparent reason, even when we were supposed to have a "locked" rate. Our intro rate was the Basic + and DVR, about $60/month for the first year. In December it went up to $75 so I downgraded to the Basic, it was $60. It seemed like a lot for basic TV - I think it was <100 channels.

We just moved and our new house is surrounded by woods, so now we have Comcast for TV and internet - $85/month for both for 6 months, then $130/month. Before we moved, we were considering switching to DirecTV - they seem to have a better package selection + customer service (DH's parents and sister both have DTV). You might want to consider that (or at least call Dish to let them know you're thinking about switching to see if they can cut you a better rate). I think DirecTV does a promotion where they'll buy you out of your Dish contract (if you've had them for <2 years).

[motherto2]

I pay $110 for cable and internet, and $16 for Vonage. I have expanded basic and DSL. vonage is unlimited incoming minutes and 100 outgoing minutes before they charge me extra. I only have the phone in case of emergencies, like direct 911 access. Since I'm basically alone it is a cost I'm not willing to give up. And yes, I think it's too much for cable/internet, but I'm pretty much a homebody and that's my entertainment, so I pay it.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

$125 for HD (with DVR) cable and internet.

[HappyLady]

Zero Dollars. I just use the basic channels that I can get for free. Cable is very expensive!

[dancinmama]

$108/mo. for a bundle package through Verizon.

12.39 Phone (unlimited incoming, 100 min. outgoing, no LD)
72.49 Direct TV (Direct Total Choice Plus, basic receiver, HD receiver, and DVR receiver)
14.99 High Speed Internet
8.05 Taxes

The $108/mo. includes a $10 HD receiver credit/mo. that I negotiated and a $6 bundling credit. I also negotiated our high speed internet charge down from $22/mo. to $14.99 mo. Every time it goes back up I call them and make them put it back down. If it were not were for my constant effort to keep our bill down, it could easily be at least $125/mo.

I am not a huge Verizon fan, but as long as they keep giving me the discounts that I want, I'll keep 'em.

[mtshastawriter]

Wow, in addition to our Dish bill we also pay $30 per month for our wireless internet (no cable here and the phone lines don't support DSL) plus phone of about $70 for our house phone. Our internet won't support phone, so we are stuck with the landline. Cell service is also pretty sketchy here, so we don't have cell phones.

[Frugal Nurse]

We pay $80/month for digital cable with some expanded channels ( a sports pack for DH), and high-speed internet. I think we pay a fair price.

[Cookies Galore]

$50/month for FIOS internet. We watch free tv over the air and catch up on cable shows when they're released on hulu or netflix. Friends of ours gave us their account info, so we don't even pay for netflix.

[TD2K]

It's basically $100 for cable and $50 for cable Internet.

[schildi]

$20 for basic cable and $40 for cable internet. After taxes and all, it's $64 together per month. But if we'd drop the cable, that would save us $10 only, as there is a $10 discount applied to the internet portion for having two services.
The digital phone is free (one time $150 charge some 1.5 years ago though) through ooma.

[michelyn8]

I pay about $65/month for Dish Network. That includes two rooms and DVR plus extra for a CW Channel in NYC. I subscribed to the CW Channel (at that time they were WB) when I switched to Dish in 2005 and my area didn't have a set channel for the WB network. One of our local channels showed "some" of the programming in the middle of the night and not consistently. I now have a local dedicated CW channel, but I kind of like seeing the news up in NYC now and then just to get an idea of the difference in "cultures".

I have the package with 120 channels, no movie channels. I went down a package when my daughter moved out in 2007 because I didn't want 90% of the channels on that level - she had so I could stand to lose the 1 or 2 that I watched now and then. Plus I called a couple years back and asked them what could be done to make my bill less. Turned out I could remove some of the extra sports channels I never watched.

[daisylu]

mtshastawriter - I am in the same boat you are. There is no cable here, and are too far from anything to pull an over-air signal through antenna.

Our phone line does not support DSL, so we had to go with the cell company for internet - which means there is a limit. So, there is no way we could stream TV either.

Our breakdown is:

$40/month for landline
$108/month Direct TV (HBO & Starz) Cutting those out would cut $20/month
$60.00 internet