Cord-Cutting 101: Advanced Cord-Cutter Setup

This cord cutting guide is for the more "experienced" streamer. You've been cord cutter for years. Well, maybe months. Possibly weeks. At the very least, you know all about cord cutting basics, devices, HD antennas, apps, and so on.

But even for the experienced cord cutter, there's still a lot to learn. With new services and devices cropping up every few months, it's kind of tough to keep up.

In this installment of cord cutting 101, we're going to help you look at your cord cutting journey from a slightly different angle.

We're going to go through three different streaming paths that you could go down:

Path #1: I want everything

Path #2: I don’t want to pay for anything

Path #3: I’m on a budget

There is no cord cutting setup to rule them all—each of these paths is legitimate, each is unique, but only one of them is right for you.

Which shall it be?

This is the simplest path out there. You want everything, you get everything.

Does this sound like you? There's a new streaming service that comes out—sweet, let's try it out. The newest Apple TV streaming device does 4K and HDR, and it's only 170 bucks? Awesome. Get it.

This pathway sounds nice, right? Yes, it does. Are you financially comfortable? You better be. This cord cutting setup isn't for the faint of wallet.

Simply talking about services here, you could subscribe to fuboTV for $75, or Hulu + Live TV for $70 a month, Netflix for $15, Disney+ for $11, Max for $16, Amazon Prime Video for $9, Paramount+ for $5, Peacock for $5, and on and on and on.

It can really add up. Suddenly, you're well over a $100 a month for TV services! Price-wise, you're right back where you were before you cut the cord.

It might be expensive, but it's easy.

If you don't mind paying for everything you want, this is just one cord cutting path you could go down.

You found yourself on this path because you wanted to save some money, and doggone it! you're going to save some money.

But if you don't want to pay for anything, you might have to make a few sacrifices. That's just the life of a cord cutting hero like you.

Maybe you don't care about current trends, so it's not a sacrifice for you to get rid of most of the popular shows out there, which happen to live behind a paywall. Maybe they're on Hulu or Disney+ or Max, but you don't care, because, like I said, you don't care about the zeitgeist.

For some people I know, having the TV on is just about background noise while they do their house cleaning, workout, or work from home.

If that sounds like you, there are dozens, maybe hundreds of free apps—often commercial-supported, sometimes not—that can mimic either the live or on-demand experience that you get from paid streaming services.

So if you're looking to cut all costs out of your streaming experience, check out services like Pluto TV or Tubi.

If you're looking for free content, you can find it on almost every platform around. Trust us—we're out there looking at all the streaming services for you.

• Top 10 free Chromecast channels
• Top 10 free hidden channels on Amazon Fire TV
• Top 10 free channels on Apple TV
• Top 10 hidden channels on Roku
• Top 5 free streaming news apps on Roku
• Top free streaming apps for kids

The point is there are a lot of free options out there for those who cut the cord.

Our third path is for the budget-conscious, and this is the group that I think most of us will probably fit into.

You got into cord cutting to save some money, but you do enjoy some of the premium content that you have to pay to watch.

This path is the toughest one to navigate, right? You don't have the same kind of simple, straightforward mindset of either buy everything or buy nothing.

But this pathway also has the most potential upside, too, in terms of balancing your content and your budget. You can get quite a lot for just a little.

With all the amazing content out there, things can add up pretty quickly if you just subscribe to every new streaming service as they pop up. Take my word for it as someone who has to sign up for every new streaming service to review it—yeah, it adds up pretty fast.

Start by finding your budget number. Is it $20 a month? Great. You can get Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video for that. That's a lot of content. $30 a month? You can get Netflix and Max. That's a pretty potent combo. Or maybe your budget is higher. Is it $60 or $70 a month? Now we're getting into live TV territory, if that's what you really want.

Let's talk about live TV for cord cutters for a moment.

This is actually the perfect time to get your budget as low as possible and save some real money. Live TV is the most expensive option out there, right? You're talking an average of $70 a month for streaming live TV.

Bottom line: The only real reason I can see paying $70 or more a month is for live TV service is for sports and news.

If you can survive without live sports and news (and channels like HGTV, Hallmark, and Food Network), then the reasons for paying for live TV evaporate pretty quickly. That's just one way you can bring down your budget number and save a lot of money.

Ultimately the point is this:

If you can find your cord cutting budget number and stick to it, it can actually make your decision-making a lot easier.

If I have a budget of $40 a month, and I'm already at $37—sorry, I can't sign up for Max unless I cancel Netflix or something else. That's just how math works.

Budget decisions can be kind of tough sometimes, but they do get easier and more straightforward if you have a firm number in mind and stick to it.

So there you go—those are the three cord cutting paths before you.

Choose wisely, grasshoppers.

If you're not sure your home internet can support all this streaming, check out our recommendations for the best internet for streaming.