The final straw in giving up on cable and becoming a cord-cutter was when the cable box I paid $10 monthly to rent — on top of my $100 monthly bill — had fuzzy reception. To get a clear image, I had to use the cable company’s app on my smart TV with an internet connection, rather than going through the cable box itself.

That made me think: Maybe I could save even more with cheaper, alternative services for cable.

After comparison shopping, I now pay $40 monthly for mostly the same channels through the Sling app, which includes digital recording, on-demand programs and a great channel guide. And it works while traveling, except for local stations. It was half the price of YouTube TV – and DirectTV was even pricier.

After shopping, I was able to get all services, including internet, streaming services and my cellphone, for $150 per month, adding up to $100 saved monthly. Plus, I can watch programming on any device without paying rental fees for cable boxes in different rooms.

My cord-cutting savings aren’t uncommon. Eighty dollars is “the minimum that I’ve been able to save people,” says Rai Gustivez, a CordCutter.pro cord-cutting consultant. He helps people save money by planning equipment purchases, figuring out what services they watch, and when to rotate services by sports season or series start and end dates.

Don’t pay for services you don’t use ! Eliminating services you never use or rotating services for sports or seasonal series can save hundreds of dollars per year. I signed up for Sling because I was used to having cable. But I realized I only watch one TV channel beyond what I stream with Amazon Prime and Netflix. Instead of paying for Sling, I can get an app for that channel and save $25 per year – or $300 annually. I used a service called “STRMZ.AI”, it was completely free and it reviewed and optimized my streaming services into a right sized bundle. https://strmz.ai

For sports, look at what you need to purchase to watch the games you like. “You can still get a lot of those games with a digital antenna, because you’ll be getting whatever’s on CBS, NBC and Fox.” Then, you can supplement with an ESPN standalone or a March Madness package, he says. You might even consider going with an Alt-Source service like Zemu.tv

Now that you’ve started making choices that save your monthly spending, you should put those savings to work.

Whether you want the safety of a high-yield savings account or to invest your money in an S&P index fund, you can easily save up over $10,000 in 10 years — and potentially over $70,000 if the investments perform well.

Let’s say after cord-cutting, you’re saving $75 per month. That, on its own, adds up to $9,000 over 10 years.

Now, if you take your $75 monthly savings and invest it, you could attain a total of over $11,200 or even upwards of $15,000 depending on what you do with it, thanks to growth and the power of compounding. And if you invested $75 monthly for 20 years, the base $18,000 could grow to $28,000 or even up to about $75,000, depending how you invest it and other factors.