Having a family is expensive. Sometimes, as parents, it’s necessary to make sacrifices, and when it comes to entertainment expenses, cable is often one of the first luxuries to get the boot.
Once you cut the cord, however, it can be hard to find a great TV setup for your family. Few streaming options meet the most important needs: robust kids’ programming, sufficient parental controls and the ability to use multiple devices at once. To complicate it further, you have to find a setup that fits within your budget.
Read on for some of the best picks for cable-free television for families.
[See: 10 Big Ways to Boost Your Budget — Without Skimping on Your Daily Latte.]
Use an antenna for free viewing. The old-school method of watching TV is still a great choice for the family on a budget, though everything depends on location. Depending on where you live, a digital antenna can give you access to many local channels, including PBS, which offers a good chunk of children’s programming via its PBS Kids programming block. You can also tune in to many other location-specific channels, including some that air only kid-friendly shows. The best part? All this programming comes free with no monthly fee.
[See: 8 Big Budgeting Blunders — and How to Fix Them.]
Make your kids their own profile on Netflix. Netflix offers a great feature for parents: a special profile just for kids. This profile type is full of colorful shows, many of them Netflix original programming. Some of these series are also interactive, allowing kids to make their own decisions about where the story goes.
Even outside the kid-specific profile, Netflix offers several options for setting parental controls. Shows with certain maturity ratings and even specific titles can be locked with a PIN to prevent kids from tuning in. Parents can also choose to restrict maturity ratings for individual profiles.
Another great thing about using Netflix with a family is that some of its plans allow streaming on multiple devices at once. Though the Basic plan, priced at $7.99 a month, only allows viewing on one screen at a time, you can access two screens a month with its $10.99 Standard subscription and four with the $14.99 Premium plan. Even if you’re planning to have four screens going at once, $15 is a fair price for access to a huge library of children’s programming to keep your family busy.
Watch live and on demand using Hulu with Live TV. Hulu’s on-demand packages, which start at $7.99 a month, offer a decent library of kids’ shows, available at any time. The live TV plan, which starts at $39.99, offers access to a selection of kids’ channels, most notably Disney Channel and its branches. If your kids care about watching their shows both as they air and whenever they want, Hulu with Live TV offers access to both.
One area where Hulu could use some improvement is in its parental controls. Content is restricted based on the age of the profile user. Mature content is banned for anyone younger than age 17. This means that if parents want to block content for their kids, they’ll have to change the age of the entire profile and change it back again every time they want access to more mature content, which can be a hassle.
Hulu’s normal plan also only allows streaming on one screen at a time, which means that if your kid is watching “Sesame Street,” you will be, too. That said, the live TV plan allows up to two simultaneous streams, and you can add on an “unlimited” option for $14.99, though more add-ons push the price further out of the “budget” category.
Tune in to live content with DirecTV Now. As one of the only streaming services that offers the Disney channels and Nickelodeon, DirecTV Now is a great service for catching live kids’ programming. It also allows viewing on up to two screens at once in its basic Live a Little package, which starts at an affordable $35 a month.
DirecTV Now doesn’t have parental controls yet, so it’s up to parents to make sure their kids steer clear of content that’s too mature for them. With many good options for live channels, however, it might be worth the trouble of keeping tabs on what your kids are watching.
[See: 6 Ways to Treat Yourself on a Budget.]
Get added benefits with Amazon Prime Instant Video. For the family on a budget, one of the best affordable streaming options for tuning in is Amazon Prime Instant Video, which is included with a normal Amazon Prime subscription (priced at $12.99 a month). This streaming service offers on-demand access to tons of kids’ movies and TV shows, including some originals.
The parental controls on Amazon Prime are some of the best on the market. As with Netflix, parents can set PIN-locked barriers on content above selected maturity levels, so only those with the identification number will be able to access more adult content. Even better, Amazon Prime allows simultaneous streams on up to three devices, so you won’t be committed to watch whatever the kids end up choosing.
The bottom line: If you want to avoid paying high prices for your family’s TV setup, there are many options to fit any budget. Parental controls, kids’ programming and accessibility on multiple screens can help parents choose what their kids watch and how they watch it. All it takes is some planning, and you can easily find a service your kids enjoy that fits in your family budget.
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Frugal Families, Discover the Best Cheap Ways to Watch TV Without Cable originally appeared on usnews.com
