I wrote this up as a reply in another thread, only to find the thread had been locked. The OP of that thread was complaining about the costs of streaming rising to match what they'd paid for cable.
Instead of paying for multiple, pay for one at a time. Watch it until you get bored then cancel and sign up for another. Don't be scared to sign up just to watch a season and canceling when done.
Also, look for ways to get access to streaming either via free services – there are quite a few free streaming services and you can get others via your library-, or as part of a bundle with other services. For instance, we have walmart+ and it comes with the choice of either Peacock or Paramount+ (and we can switch between them every 6 months), we also get Hulu /Disney with our phone service.
Finally, watch for deals. Black Friday always offers cheap multi-month deals for many different streaming services. We get HBO for $3.99/mo because if the deal we got at black friday. We had a similar deal with Appletv for several months. While Black Friday has the best deals, you can find similar deals usually around when Amazon does it's (now quarterly) Black friday deals.
Speaking of Amazon, we canceled Prime years ago when we opted for walmart+, but between the two of us we get at least 4 months of free prime because about every 6 months Amazon will offer one us a free month. Plus, occasionally when we order something we'll get a week or so of prime for like $2 just because taking that deal is cheaper than actually paying the $6.99 shipping.
For sports, we do like to watch college (and some pro) football, and because we are in an area where local TV reception is nil, we usually upgrade our Hulu account to Hulu+ or get YouTubeTV for the football season and then cancel when the season is over. That's the period when our streaming bill is highest. The rest of the year we rarely pay more than $5/mo and maintain 3-4 streaming services.
Posted by BJntheRV
3 Comments
RIP Hulu’s $1-2/mo black Friday deals; I used those ones for a few years. When faced with actual prices of streaming services I just don’t see the value anymore.
Good tips! A couple other areas I’ve seen for deals and savings –
* Xfinity offered me Peacock for free as well. This might be based on your membership time/tier with them (Xfinity Rewards) so I’m not sure if everyone qualifies.
* My AmEx card has deals on a number of subscription services, and will reimburse up to a certain amount each month (usually the full cost) of 3-4 months.
* Kanopy is the platform that’s included with my library card and has a surprisingly good amount of movies and shows!
Howdy is $3 per month with NO COMMERCIALS!!!