Over these past year, I have been reading a lot about cord cutting and the true cost of it compared to cable and satellite services. All these media outlets like to spew numbers over how much it would be to subscribe to all these cord cutting services and how much it would be to subscribe to cable/satellite. The truth is, many of us were or still are subscribed to both at the same time.

Like many of you, I was on DirecTV (replace that with Comcast, Dish, or whatever you have) and had both Netflix and Amazon Prime. I had Amazon Prime mainly for the shipping benefits and the video service was just a bonus. That means I was paying around $65 for DirectV, $12.99 per/month for Netflix, and around $10/month for Amazon Prime. Over the past year, I also added Hulu into the mix, but at a special rate of $.99/month which was a holiday special last year.

Guess which one I recently got rid of?

If you guessed DirecTV, you’re right. You know what I used DirecTV for mainly? Kids programming. My kids enjoyed the Disney Channel and Cartoon Network and you can probably guess what I just subscribed to that replaced that. That’s right, Disney+.

So here’s the thing. A lot of media outlets like to say just list all these cord cutting services and add them together saying that you’d be spending this amount of money in comparison to cable/satellite and you’d be spending more, which is bull doody because like many of you, I was subscribed to both. I’m saving money now by not subscribing to cable/satellite and replaced that with Disney+ while still having Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime.

Not only that, I only subscribe to what I’m watching. I don’t watch HBO nor have I had any interest in Game of Thrones so I have no need for that. I don’t watch nor do I care much about live TV. If I do want to watch the occasional live TV, I have an HD Antenna I use.  What I’m trying to say is that I’m sure many of you have your priorities when it comes to what you watch. You’re not going to subscribe to everything like these news outlets like to assume you do. In actuality, most of you probably subscribe to about 3-4 services at a time. Am I close? If not that, then you at least have a budget. Also with streaming, there’s no real equipment to rent and you can also subscribe and unsubscribe as you please if you’re not on a contract.

With that said, don’t let a lot of what the media says about the true cost of streaming scare you. The truth is, you don’t need to subscribe to everything. You just need to subscribe to watch you’ll watch. With cable/satellite, I always felt like I was paying for more of what I didn’t watch then what I did. Out of the hundreds of channels, how many did you actually watch? At least now, I know what I’m paying for.

Let me know about your cord cutting efforts below.