Summary
- Save money by subscribing to one or two streaming services at a time.
- Take a month-to-month approach, hopping between services to watch what you want.
- Invest in physical media for your favorite shows and movies at affordable prices.
Back in the day when Netflix was the major player in the streaming world, it was easy to justify paying for a single subscription that always felt like a bargain thanks to the sheer amount of content at my fingertips. Back then, Netflix acted as more of a supplemental addition to cable instead of an outright replacement.
As the years went by, Netflix continued to gain value, but more streamers entered the fray. Hulu, Disney+, Max, Paramount+, and several more options exist now, and it’s tough to keep up with everything. A bigger issue is the content being spread so thin across everything now. Years ago, shows like Friends and The Office would both be on Netflix, but now you have to subscribe to two different services to watch them. At a certain point, the price no longer becomes worth it, and I reached my tipping point. It’s time to start canceling things.
In 2025, I plan to drastically cut back on my streaming spending, and instead of staying subscribed to several services at once, I’m going to limit it to one or two at a time. There’s no point keeping it all around, especially if there’s no time to watch everything.
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Save a lot of money and unsubscribe
Take it month to month
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What if I told you that you could still keep up with everything you want to watch while still saving truckloads of money a year? It’s possible, and I’ve been sort of doing it the past few months. Instead of being subscribed to Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, etc. all at the same time, I’ve been hopping around from streaming service to streaming service.
With some of the streaming services costing about $20 a month for the most expensive tier, it’s just not cost-effective anymore to stay subscribed to it all. Outside of promos and bundles that keep costs down, you’re better off taking it month to month. What I mean by that is subscribe for a month, watch what you want, and then move on. Make sure you cancel your subscription and start researching what’s on a different service that you’re interested in.
Let me use Netflix’s Cobra Kai as an example. Netflix decided to split the final season up into three parts. Instead of watching a series of five episodes three separate times, I decided to hold off completely a wait until it’s all available to watch. Sometimes, that has negative connotations, especially with Netflix being so hasty to pull the trigger on cancelations. There’s no reason to be concerned about this scenario since it’s the final season of the show. Admittedly, that situation doesn’t typically happen with Netflix, but the stars are aligned here, and it’s letting me save a great deal of money.
If you’re somebody who watches movies more than TV shows, it’s even more beneficial since you can knock out numerous movies in a month while TV shows are harder to binge like that. Using Netflix as an example again, you could resubscribe for a month and watch The Killer, Hit-Man, Rebel Ridge, and countless others in a single weekend if you’d like. You can do that for TV shows
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There are some downsides to it all
You never know how permanent something is
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Something streaming seemingly promised at the beginning was a place for you to always watch your favorite shows and movies. You figured if something was made by Netflix, Disney, or HBO, it’d find its permanent home on that service. Fast-forward to now, and it’s obvious that was the wrong assessment to make.
Shows like Willow, Close Enough, and Infinity Train were all pulled from their respective services, and the only way to watch some of them is through nefarious means. It’s bizarre to think of something that was paid for and distributed could be removed from a service completely, but that’s the reality we’re in. It’s also a clear downside of the method I’m using, because there’s no telling when something will have the rug pulled out from under it. I remember when the announcement that Close Enough was canceled and was being removed hit because I scrambled to finish watching the series before I couldn’t anymore. I’m not a big fan of binging, so it was annoying to have to watch something that way, but as a huge fan of the Regular Show, I had to do it.
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More bargain hunting
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Something I also realized over the years is that chasing your favorite shows and movies doesn’t have to be expensive as it is. Instead, you can buy a physical copy of something and keep it in your library forever. While not everything gets a physical release, a good chunk of things do, and that includes just about any theatrical release. TV shows are tougher to track down as a Netflix show is typically reserved for the service, but there are some exceptions, like The Haunting of Hill House and Stranger Things, at least the earlier seasons.
You might be shocked to know how affordable some movies and shows are, especially if you go to thrift stores. DVDs in particular are dirt cheap, and if you’re okay with the lower quality of them, you can find a lot to pick up for a low price. Blu-rays are typically more expensive, but you can still come away with a good haul from a thrift store. If you factor in stores like Gruv, a storefront that offers a beefy 20% off coupon for first-time buyers, then you can get a lot of value.
What I’ve noticed is buying physical often has a higher upfront cost, especially buying new releases, but it’s worth it in the long run if you’re a collector and what you’re buying is something you plan to watch time and time again. I have to mention that it’s a rabbit hole, however. Finding out about the boutique shops like Criterion, Arrow, and Shout! can quickly become a money sink. For me, it’s all part of the fun, and I’d rather support physical media than a streaming service that might take away my content whenever they please.
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Disney is releasing its first VHS in 17 years and I have questions
Sometimes, a retro format release makes sense. Being able to purchase Star-Lord’s Awesome Mix on an actual cassette tape was undeniably cool in 2017. But sometimes it doesn’t. Case in point: The VHS release of this past summer’s Alien: Romulus.20th Century Studios has announced that it will be releasing the film on limited edition VHS on December 3, complete with full screen 4×3 aspect ratio. For reference, the last VHS release by parent company Disney was Cars in 2007, nearly 20 years ago. With VHS players almost impossible to find outside of eBay and repairs for existing units becoming harder and harder to comission, we have to wonder, who, exactly is this VHS release for. It is doubtful that these novelty items will ever be played on an actual VHS tape player, and its not like the VHS format plays significantly into the history of the Alien franchise. So why do it? How do you feel about this strange physical release? Would you like to see more VHS releases? Or are you just as
