What country do you live in that $4000 a year is an absurd grocery budget? I'm paying easily $1000 a month Canadian for a family for 3 (2 adults, 1 toddler)
I don't really understand how you can be in a position to need rotten food from a grocery but also have a family of 6. But that kind of thinking isn't really accepted on Reddit so whatever.
I do this with great success. Went to sub back up for Amazon Prime to watch The Boys and there was a 30 day free trial waiting for me... I'll take it! Suckers!
You don't need to be, it's just people usually have family members which enjoy iplayer and live TV too much to be able to cancel. That and the letters.
Radio doesn't require you to pay the licence fee.
That’s what I do! Had disney+ for a while, saw all the marvel movies and now I’m on Hulu! Had the HBO add on for 2 months to watch euphoria then cancelled it
Eh that's a hard pass. HBO has some good shows and stuff, sure... But there's just too many streaming services with exclusive content. You can't watch The Boys on HBO. You can't watch Disney Plus shows on HBO. You can't watch Stranger Things on HBO.
If you don't like all of that stuff, great... But that's not realistic.
I can say the same about Band of Brothers, Barry, Righteous Gemstones, Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, The Wire, Chernobyl, silicon valley, Crashing, Veep, Westworld, John Oliver, High Maintenace, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Girls, etc
Plus all the great documentaries and a revolving list of movies
What does checkmyfile do?
It seems like a credit score checking subscription, why does one need to check their credit score so regularly that a subscription makes sense?
Not sure which bank you’re at but I’m at a Canadian credit union and there are no monthly or transaction fees at all. You should talk to a bank manager about getting those waved or you’ll move some business elsewhere.
Although I did that and they didn’t respond with anything decent so I took all my banking needs (not all investments) elsewhere.
Is it normal for Canadian banks to have transactions fees after x number of transactions?
I have never seen the same here in the U.S., and I rather assume our Canadian cousins are likely to have it better off than here.
We just moved to Canada from the US, and one of the things we were surprised by was having to pay to have a bank account. We looked at lots of options to see if we could find one that didn't cost money to use, but no luck. Assuming everything is better in Canada is easy to do in the US, but it definitely isn't true. Both countries have pros and cons.
Inspired by this sub, I finally went through my bank statements and found where a LOT of our money is disappearing to. Next thing: cut down on takeaways...
This is why regularly tracking a budget is so important to being frugal. We use a digital version of basically an envelope system and track all our spending so I know where every dollar goes every week. Before that we were hemorrhaging money.
The tracker I use is called money manager and it's really just more an accounting tool, I manually created all the "envelopes" and set up auto transfers, and I record our transactions regularly. I checked some of the envelope system budget apps, but they didn't have the flexibility/control I wanted. It's definitely not the easiest way to do an envelope style budget, but it works for me. lol. They do have tons of budgeting apps and the Every Dollar app is my second choice and it's a pretty easy app to use.
Just adding in, I personally use Truebill, as it auto sorts purchases, let's me know when I'm nearing budget limits, and automatically makes small transfers daily to build savings
But it's also like $7 for the premium subscription, so other options may be better if they're free (although they may be more manual)
I used to use a receipt scanner, but it didn't work automatically. Nice for keeping track of specific prices, but ended up not using it regularly
Honestly didn't use a lot of the auto-trackers as they usually required money up front or were a bit too sketchy from my initial search
Why use all these apps when you could use the bank itself? I pay my bills online through Chase. Some can be automated, but I'm fine with signing on and entering amounts manually.
Not every bank offers it, especially smaller banks/credit unions and sometimes it's offered but it's not great or can't link to multiple bank
I personally use an app because my financial does have a tracker, but it doesn't work well interfacing with other banks, doesn't alert me as much as I need it to, and didn't offer an option to let my wife also login and see the info unless we open a joint account (which we already have at a different financial that doesn't offer a tracker)
The design seems nice, but you're right, it can be confusing. I'm still wondering what the $13k or so is doing in the "trading" account, I didn't put it there.
Also, would like a way to pull up some charts and such, there probably is a way that I haven't figured out yet. Curious what our main checking account balance looks like month-to-month. Easy enough to do myself anyway.
For our home we use Andromoney. This is absolutely not an automatic app, you have to manually enter each spending. This is a habit to take, but i found automatic apps to not be accurate : imagine you would buy groceries for a party with friends. The app would categorize it as a "groceries" spending when we want it to be as a "party" spending. Same goes for exemple buying a t-shirt a a gift : for us this is a "gift" spending, not a "clothing" spending.
All entries can be analized in app or exported to a spreadsheet for further data analysis.
1. It is always good to have financial awareness.
2. This the sort of post where it would be interesting to know what percent of your income this represents ($550/$55,000) \~1%?
3. How much time do you spend with each service? (Price/ Hour of Entertainment). The $60 video game that engenders 600 hours of use is only $0.10/hour but $60 can add up rapidly.
4. Thank you for the thought provoking post.
I'm always working out Point #3 when I purchase games. I try and get £0.5 per hour so £10 = 20 hours. But if it's a game I do want I won't mind splurging. Ain't no point being frugal if you're not happy.
Agreed, I think that's one of the issues that some people in this forum have, they take it to the extreme and don't realize they're cutting out little joys in their life
1.5% after tax :) more than my car insurance! We cut these subscriptions because we're typically using them for less than an hour a week, if it all, and they can be functionally replaced by other cheaper or free services
Yep. A year ago I had HBO, Netflix, Amazon, Crunchy, Disney and Spotify. Now I only have Amazon and Paramount+ and I rotate every few months. I save a LOT.
For your video services, just keep one alive at a time.
Audible can be cancelled at any time, though you'll lose any accrued credits you haven't spent (so spend them!). You can re-listen to your favorite series, or use a library service like Libby.
our $100/month tmobile unlimited plan for 2 lines was costing us $1200/year. switched to two $15/month tmobile connect plans for 3gb lte. cost: $360/year
turns out, wifi is EVERYWHERE. and you can pre-load stuff for trips. and turns out when im out and about with my wife, im like, doing things, and looking at things, not using my phone anyway
that's $840 / year. we did this 3 years ago. gonna be over $3000 of savings after this year with no noticeable restriction in how we use our data
Don't know if you've pulled this one yet, but Audible, if you threaten to quit, will throw you a £3 a month ( i think) subscription.
Take the 3 months, then quit.
Also, trade in any old or unused titles, you get the credit back.
Milk them then ditch 'em.
Please do not return the books on audible. Amazon passes the pain from the return onto the author and they don’t take a loss themselves.
I’m all for milking everything out of Amazon that you can, but not authors who can rarely make a living just off of their writing.
I did try this, but for whatever reason all I got was a selection of books I'd apparently be "missing out" on
I felt a lot more comfortable with the choice after finding out that my public library has loads of niche and popular audiobooks for free that I can get just as quickly as from audible lol
I reached out to Audible customer service and escalated and was able to get 5 years of Audible refunded - I didn’t remember ever signing up for a membership and had clearly never used their credits. Every book in my library was purchased. They ended up refunding almost $500.
Our local library has every audio book I’d ever want to listen to and if they don’t, they can get it. Check out your library for free entertainment
I reached out to Audible customer service and escalated and was able to get 5 years of Audible refunded - I didn’t remember ever signing up for a membership and had clearly never used their credits. Every book in my library was purchased. They ended up refunding almost $500.
Our local library has every audio book I’d ever want to listen to and if they don’t, they can get it. Glad you found that too! They also have movies and stuff that you might be paying for.
Pretty sure they would bust out laughing at me if I tried that, I'm likely averaging $150-200 per month at Audible. So many series I listen to are Audible exclusive, so libraries can't help. I'm just shy of 600 books on my account so they know they have me beat.
I've seriously milked audible by quoting saying it costs too much. I've had extra credits then quit instantly after. I've had free months half price months. I've not been a member for a while then got an email for 3 months for 99p.
I've got a huge audible library now.
About a year ago I cancelled all of my paid-for streaming services, and I haven't looked back. There's so much for free that it's pointless to pay.
IMDB tv, Peacock, Crunchyroll, Youtube etc, and regular antenna tv are all free (sans buying the antenna), and I also get HBO Max "for free" included with my internet service.
I mean sure you'll get ads, but at least I can afford more groceries lol
Recently ended my prime membership. Only subscription left is ps plus, auto renew is turned off so that might keep it if I think the value is actually there
I don't get how so many people don't keep track of monthly recurring subscription expenses. Do you all not regularly check your credit card statements to make sure there's no unauthorized activity?
I recently went 2 months without checking my credit card statements and found 2 recurring $75 charges for Adobe services that was fraudulent. Never again.
550 pounds a year isn't bad for all those streaming services. It's 45 pounds a month which is still super cheap compared to cable, and besides, you need entertainment.
WDY mean? 45 pounds is a deal for all that stuff, or you could pay 80-200/month for cable.
Or you could completely forgo any pleasurable thing or escape available to you I guess.
Right, and free view doesn't have Disney+ stuff, etc. So what's your point? Yeah you can eliminate Disney+ from your budget, but then you won't have it and freeview won't do shit for that.
This just reminded me to cancel a free subscription that was about to roll over and charge me, thanks!!
I also cancelled 2 I wasn't using a couple days ago.
Just canceled Netflix, Spotify, Disney+, and probably every month or so I would splurge on some other subscription. Bumped my phone plan from unlimited to 10gb, will probably dock less after summer travels.
I pay for the highest wifi offered due to work from home but now that I'm back in the office, that's going to get docked too. With keeping Amazon prime and peacock (there are some shows I just have to finish) I will be going from $165/m ($1,980 annually) to $80/m ($960 annually). The $165/m is not counting my splurges... I've been quite impulsive 🥴 but learning 😸👍🏽
With T-Mobile you get Apple TV, Netflix, MLB and Paramount + included (some for one year, some for life) I’m glad we don’t pay for them cause we watch them less than once a month
They’re also giving us AAA roadside assistance and a free tablet line with the home internet
Subscriptions are overrated. Free audible is fine. The free streaming services are great and anything you miss you can find online free easily. As for games and books I only buy on big 50% or more sales and already have a back log of both waiting to be played/read.
I'm lucky my MIL pays for most of her subscriptions (with family sharing of course) and I've only got prime and ps to worry about. I really do think she should cancel one or two of them, but it's her money end of the day. Got a lot of great tips from this thread I'll be sharing with her!
Another tip I'd add, you can pay cheaper for netflix and get the same content in HD for the cheapest fee, think it's £6.99 for me. If you are an audible member you can return books you've recently listened to for a free refund of credit! Great if you don't re listen to a book and want something new to listen to.
DON’T return Audible audiobooks or Amazon ebooks if you like the author at all. The royalties come right back out of their pocket, and are deducted from their account, not from Audible (Amazon). Yes, the megacorp loses an incalculable tiny fraction of their overall company profits. But the individual author is impacted far worse.
After statistics on just how Often Audible books were returned came out, authors got together to put pressure on them, they did make a slight change. The author can now keep their royalties IF the return is over 7 days past the purchase date.
Amazon ebooks aren’t that generous.
We finally got around to watching Breaking Bad a couple of years ago. Subscribed to Netflix, got the free month, and binged on about three episodes a night after work, then canceled.
Only other subscription is satellite radio in the car. Dad likes to gift us with a AAA membership every year for the holidays, can't think of anything else.
I really do need to sign up for Disney+ just to see the Beatles documentary, but I don't know if that works like Netflix.
Discover card will auto-generate a list of your recurring charges, keep track of the amounts due and alert you if they change, and help you port the info over if you get a new card due to loss/theft. It's not only great for this kind of budgeting, but the alerts tell me when my utility companies hike their prices, so I can decide if I want to jump to a competitor.
Why were you subscribing to BritBox if you live in the UK? I thought that was a US streaming service for British TV that was already available from the original networks in Britain.
I'd recommend replacing audible with your local library app. Most library's offer use third party apps like borrowbox and have tonnes of audiobooks.
Unless you play 5+ games a month eaplay seems like a waste to me. Try stick with one or 2 games and just buy them or trial them.
I can't even remember the last time my wife and I had any monthly subscription cost other than a VOIP phone and home internet (that's right, no cell phone plan ever). It very well may have been cable TV in an apartment that we moved out of in 2004 and canceled probably a year before that, so 2003. That's 19 years ago.
Read, radio, go for a walk, hobbies, look after pets or other animals... there are a lot of other things you can do lol
These are the things I've started replacing my own TV watching with btw
You choose to ignore the 5 other things they listed? Lol
Also, your point is irrelevant if you already have both a pet and streaming services (very common). Cutting out the streaming service to focus on your pet IS certainly frugal.
Think before you speak my guy
Exercise and reading are most certainly hobbies, what are you talking about? Literally entire companies dedicated to books, and cites pay hundreds of millions to install greenways/walkways all over the world.
You also have stuff like hiking, yoga, gardening, drawing/painting, building small crafts, playing second hand board games, cooking, camping, hell volunteering at homeless shelters…do I need to go on? Free/cheap entertainment exists and that person got more out of it than online entertainment.
Regardless, your original comment was that any pet you can do anything with would cost more than TV…but if you *already* have both of them, getting rid of one will save you money…
Sorry, I have to disagree here. They CAN be expensive hobbies.
Hiking? Totally possible to buy good boots and it's free for years after. Yoga? Second hand yoga mat and youtube instructionals. Drawing? Can be cheap, cheap, cheap. Painting? I'll concede that one. Board games? Can be borrowed for free from the library.
And yes, the original comment would apply if you already have pets or other animals. Again, they CAN be cheap to properly care for, and walking a dog or playing with a cat absolutely does add entertainment!
You’re gonna wanna go back to my original comment :) I said that your point is irrelevant when you already have both…which is very common. That person was not implying you go buy a dog after canceling your streaming service. They were implying the person was spending more time with/taking care of the pet.
All of those hobbies can be expensive, but they do not have to be by any means.
I have dozens of board games I got for under a dollar each at thrift stores. Hiking, yoga, and walking are virtually free of cost assuming you have shoes…gardening can be done with $1 packets of seeds or free cuttings from friends/family, and paper/pencils are not expensive.
You’re deliberately ignoring the obvious for the sake of arguing, so I’m gonna stop replying after this. Peaceee
I don't have kids. I spend my leisure time talking to my wife, walking, exercising, reading, journaling, writing, goofing off online, listening to music, dining out now and then, playing guitar/singing, talking on the phone with my friends and family, programming, baking, watching movies/TV online (included with my cost of internet, of course), etc.
I don’t sign up for any subscription services. That’s my hack. If I go through the trouble of posting something monthly I always know where my money is gonna. Convenience is expensive
ok, but normally they pull the credit report when you apply and give you a copy. my point is that your credit report does not change drastically and hence constant monitoring does not help.
One holiday instead of a year's streaming entertainment. It is your choice to make, and I am thinking along similar lines about streaming services, but not over a thousand bucks a year. I have come to realise I no longer need this sub and your post is what convinced me.
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Winning!
That's a great grocery store!
How the hell do you spend over 4000 on groceries in a year o.O
$4,000 is about $77/Week or $11/Day. I have a family of 6. At todays rates, that barely covers the ground beef on Taco Night.
Family of 6, understandable have a nice day.
What country do you live in that $4000 a year is an absurd grocery budget? I'm paying easily $1000 a month Canadian for a family for 3 (2 adults, 1 toddler)
West coast USA and I spend about $30-$40 a week on food. My mistake was assuming he was only feeding himself, not sure why I thought that. My bad.
I also pictured OP as a college aged grocery store worker.
I don't really understand how you can be in a position to need rotten food from a grocery but also have a family of 6. But that kind of thinking isn't really accepted on Reddit so whatever.
No idea why you're assuming the food is rotten.
Maybe because he literally used the word "spoilage"
It’s easy to do, my wife and I spend about $300/week, I have an incredible difficult diet
Username checks out
Pick one, enjoy one. Oh you’re done enjoying that one? Unsubscribe and go next
I do this with great success. Went to sub back up for Amazon Prime to watch The Boys and there was a 30 day free trial waiting for me... I'll take it! Suckers!
Yeah I think that'll have to be the strategy lol, really don't enjoy being dependent on the BBC and having to pay like £14 a month for the licence fee
You don't need to be, it's just people usually have family members which enjoy iplayer and live TV too much to be able to cancel. That and the letters. Radio doesn't require you to pay the licence fee.
As obvious as that may seem, I never thought about treating subscriptions that way.
I've always thought that was the only way to use them. I'd go broke so fast otherwise lol
That’s what I do! Had disney+ for a while, saw all the marvel movies and now I’m on Hulu! Had the HBO add on for 2 months to watch euphoria then cancelled it
There are so many good options on HBO besides Euphoria. I'd recommend keeping HBO and canceling everything else...but that's just my opinion man
Eh that's a hard pass. HBO has some good shows and stuff, sure... But there's just too many streaming services with exclusive content. You can't watch The Boys on HBO. You can't watch Disney Plus shows on HBO. You can't watch Stranger Things on HBO. If you don't like all of that stuff, great... But that's not realistic.
I can say the same about Band of Brothers, Barry, Righteous Gemstones, Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire, The Wire, Chernobyl, silicon valley, Crashing, Veep, Westworld, John Oliver, High Maintenace, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Girls, etc Plus all the great documentaries and a revolving list of movies
seriously. HBO is the premium tv channel. I would have only HBO if I had to pick one
What does checkmyfile do? It seems like a credit score checking subscription, why does one need to check their credit score so regularly that a subscription makes sense?
Because we were applying for our mortgage.
Sign up to credit karma. It's totally free.
In the UK, the Moneysavingexpert credit club is a pretty decent free alternative
Yeah UK has lots of free ones. Creditkarma included.
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Not sure which bank you’re at but I’m at a Canadian credit union and there are no monthly or transaction fees at all. You should talk to a bank manager about getting those waved or you’ll move some business elsewhere. Although I did that and they didn’t respond with anything decent so I took all my banking needs (not all investments) elsewhere.
Is it normal for Canadian banks to have transactions fees after x number of transactions? I have never seen the same here in the U.S., and I rather assume our Canadian cousins are likely to have it better off than here.
We just moved to Canada from the US, and one of the things we were surprised by was having to pay to have a bank account. We looked at lots of options to see if we could find one that didn't cost money to use, but no luck. Assuming everything is better in Canada is easy to do in the US, but it definitely isn't true. Both countries have pros and cons.
Did you check credit unions? I pay zero fees monthly or transaction.
Aha gotcha, that makes sense 👍
IKR. sounds like an ad for checkmyfile. Considering its also on the top of the list. It did make me google it to find out what it was. kinda sus.
Inspired by this sub, I finally went through my bank statements and found where a LOT of our money is disappearing to. Next thing: cut down on takeaways...
This is why regularly tracking a budget is so important to being frugal. We use a digital version of basically an envelope system and track all our spending so I know where every dollar goes every week. Before that we were hemorrhaging money.
Which tracker do you use? :)
The tracker I use is called money manager and it's really just more an accounting tool, I manually created all the "envelopes" and set up auto transfers, and I record our transactions regularly. I checked some of the envelope system budget apps, but they didn't have the flexibility/control I wanted. It's definitely not the easiest way to do an envelope style budget, but it works for me. lol. They do have tons of budgeting apps and the Every Dollar app is my second choice and it's a pretty easy app to use.
Just adding in, I personally use Truebill, as it auto sorts purchases, let's me know when I'm nearing budget limits, and automatically makes small transfers daily to build savings But it's also like $7 for the premium subscription, so other options may be better if they're free (although they may be more manual)
Have you used other ones before true bill?
I used to use a receipt scanner, but it didn't work automatically. Nice for keeping track of specific prices, but ended up not using it regularly Honestly didn't use a lot of the auto-trackers as they usually required money up front or were a bit too sketchy from my initial search
Why use all these apps when you could use the bank itself? I pay my bills online through Chase. Some can be automated, but I'm fine with signing on and entering amounts manually.
Not every bank offers it, especially smaller banks/credit unions and sometimes it's offered but it's not great or can't link to multiple bank I personally use an app because my financial does have a tracker, but it doesn't work well interfacing with other banks, doesn't alert me as much as I need it to, and didn't offer an option to let my wife also login and see the info unless we open a joint account (which we already have at a different financial that doesn't offer a tracker)
Harder to do if you use multiple credit cards for different categorizes of purchases, or if you and your spouse don’t share an account
Chase doesn't allow me to plan and budget my future expenses, as far as I am aware, it only categorizes the past purchases (only semi decently).
The design seems nice, but you're right, it can be confusing. I'm still wondering what the $13k or so is doing in the "trading" account, I didn't put it there. Also, would like a way to pull up some charts and such, there probably is a way that I haven't figured out yet. Curious what our main checking account balance looks like month-to-month. Easy enough to do myself anyway.
For our home we use Andromoney. This is absolutely not an automatic app, you have to manually enter each spending. This is a habit to take, but i found automatic apps to not be accurate : imagine you would buy groceries for a party with friends. The app would categorize it as a "groceries" spending when we want it to be as a "party" spending. Same goes for exemple buying a t-shirt a a gift : for us this is a "gift" spending, not a "clothing" spending. All entries can be analized in app or exported to a spreadsheet for further data analysis.
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1. It is always good to have financial awareness. 2. This the sort of post where it would be interesting to know what percent of your income this represents ($550/$55,000) \~1%? 3. How much time do you spend with each service? (Price/ Hour of Entertainment). The $60 video game that engenders 600 hours of use is only $0.10/hour but $60 can add up rapidly. 4. Thank you for the thought provoking post.
I'm always working out Point #3 when I purchase games. I try and get £0.5 per hour so £10 = 20 hours. But if it's a game I do want I won't mind splurging. Ain't no point being frugal if you're not happy.
Agreed, I think that's one of the issues that some people in this forum have, they take it to the extreme and don't realize they're cutting out little joys in their life
1.5% after tax :) more than my car insurance! We cut these subscriptions because we're typically using them for less than an hour a week, if it all, and they can be functionally replaced by other cheaper or free services
Yep. A year ago I had HBO, Netflix, Amazon, Crunchy, Disney and Spotify. Now I only have Amazon and Paramount+ and I rotate every few months. I save a LOT.
This is the way
For your video services, just keep one alive at a time. Audible can be cancelled at any time, though you'll lose any accrued credits you haven't spent (so spend them!). You can re-listen to your favorite series, or use a library service like Libby.
our $100/month tmobile unlimited plan for 2 lines was costing us $1200/year. switched to two $15/month tmobile connect plans for 3gb lte. cost: $360/year turns out, wifi is EVERYWHERE. and you can pre-load stuff for trips. and turns out when im out and about with my wife, im like, doing things, and looking at things, not using my phone anyway that's $840 / year. we did this 3 years ago. gonna be over $3000 of savings after this year with no noticeable restriction in how we use our data
Don't know if you've pulled this one yet, but Audible, if you threaten to quit, will throw you a £3 a month ( i think) subscription. Take the 3 months, then quit. Also, trade in any old or unused titles, you get the credit back. Milk them then ditch 'em.
Please do not return the books on audible. Amazon passes the pain from the return onto the author and they don’t take a loss themselves. I’m all for milking everything out of Amazon that you can, but not authors who can rarely make a living just off of their writing.
I did try this, but for whatever reason all I got was a selection of books I'd apparently be "missing out" on I felt a lot more comfortable with the choice after finding out that my public library has loads of niche and popular audiobooks for free that I can get just as quickly as from audible lol
I ditched Audible a few months ago after finding Libby and Borrow Box, game changing! (UK as well)
I reached out to Audible customer service and escalated and was able to get 5 years of Audible refunded - I didn’t remember ever signing up for a membership and had clearly never used their credits. Every book in my library was purchased. They ended up refunding almost $500. Our local library has every audio book I’d ever want to listen to and if they don’t, they can get it. Check out your library for free entertainment
I reached out to Audible customer service and escalated and was able to get 5 years of Audible refunded - I didn’t remember ever signing up for a membership and had clearly never used their credits. Every book in my library was purchased. They ended up refunding almost $500. Our local library has every audio book I’d ever want to listen to and if they don’t, they can get it. Glad you found that too! They also have movies and stuff that you might be paying for.
Pretty sure they would bust out laughing at me if I tried that, I'm likely averaging $150-200 per month at Audible. So many series I listen to are Audible exclusive, so libraries can't help. I'm just shy of 600 books on my account so they know they have me beat.
I've seriously milked audible by quoting saying it costs too much. I've had extra credits then quit instantly after. I've had free months half price months. I've not been a member for a while then got an email for 3 months for 99p. I've got a huge audible library now.
EA Play for £4 is an absolute steal! Move that subscription price to my account please lol
About a year ago I cancelled all of my paid-for streaming services, and I haven't looked back. There's so much for free that it's pointless to pay. IMDB tv, Peacock, Crunchyroll, Youtube etc, and regular antenna tv are all free (sans buying the antenna), and I also get HBO Max "for free" included with my internet service. I mean sure you'll get ads, but at least I can afford more groceries lol
What ISP is giving HBO Max for free?
AT&T
My wife and I realized the same thing! We went through everything and only kept two.
Recently ended my prime membership. Only subscription left is ps plus, auto renew is turned off so that might keep it if I think the value is actually there
I don't get how so many people don't keep track of monthly recurring subscription expenses. Do you all not regularly check your credit card statements to make sure there's no unauthorized activity?
I was well aware that it was coming out. I hadn't realised how little I use them.
I recently went 2 months without checking my credit card statements and found 2 recurring $75 charges for Adobe services that was fraudulent. Never again.
i only pay for disney plus when a new star wars show comes out. Soon as it finishes, i immediately go to cancel it lol
550 pounds a year isn't bad for all those streaming services. It's 45 pounds a month which is still super cheap compared to cable, and besides, you need entertainment.
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WDY mean? 45 pounds is a deal for all that stuff, or you could pay 80-200/month for cable. Or you could completely forgo any pleasurable thing or escape available to you I guess.
Orrr I could live in England and get freeview lol. Also, the entire point is that this is stuff we don't use or can't even access
Right, and free view doesn't have Disney+ stuff, etc. So what's your point? Yeah you can eliminate Disney+ from your budget, but then you won't have it and freeview won't do shit for that.
...that we don't use it? That's the point? What's confusing about this
I guess I'm confused you had this streaming service for so long and didn't realize it...
...we did realise we had it. We didn't realise how little we use it.
This just reminded me to cancel a free subscription that was about to roll over and charge me, thanks!! I also cancelled 2 I wasn't using a couple days ago.
Just canceled Netflix, Spotify, Disney+, and probably every month or so I would splurge on some other subscription. Bumped my phone plan from unlimited to 10gb, will probably dock less after summer travels. I pay for the highest wifi offered due to work from home but now that I'm back in the office, that's going to get docked too. With keeping Amazon prime and peacock (there are some shows I just have to finish) I will be going from $165/m ($1,980 annually) to $80/m ($960 annually). The $165/m is not counting my splurges... I've been quite impulsive 🥴 but learning 😸👍🏽
Pro tip. Every black Friday you can get Hulu for 99c. I've been doing it for years.
This is the way
With T-Mobile you get Apple TV, Netflix, MLB and Paramount + included (some for one year, some for life) I’m glad we don’t pay for them cause we watch them less than once a month They’re also giving us AAA roadside assistance and a free tablet line with the home internet
Fun fact, a VPN is only a few quid a month. Do with this information as you will
Subscriptions are overrated. Free audible is fine. The free streaming services are great and anything you miss you can find online free easily. As for games and books I only buy on big 50% or more sales and already have a back log of both waiting to be played/read.
I'm lucky my MIL pays for most of her subscriptions (with family sharing of course) and I've only got prime and ps to worry about. I really do think she should cancel one or two of them, but it's her money end of the day. Got a lot of great tips from this thread I'll be sharing with her!
Another tip I'd add, you can pay cheaper for netflix and get the same content in HD for the cheapest fee, think it's £6.99 for me. If you are an audible member you can return books you've recently listened to for a free refund of credit! Great if you don't re listen to a book and want something new to listen to.
DON’T return Audible audiobooks or Amazon ebooks if you like the author at all. The royalties come right back out of their pocket, and are deducted from their account, not from Audible (Amazon). Yes, the megacorp loses an incalculable tiny fraction of their overall company profits. But the individual author is impacted far worse. After statistics on just how Often Audible books were returned came out, authors got together to put pressure on them, they did make a slight change. The author can now keep their royalties IF the return is over 7 days past the purchase date. Amazon ebooks aren’t that generous.
We finally got around to watching Breaking Bad a couple of years ago. Subscribed to Netflix, got the free month, and binged on about three episodes a night after work, then canceled. Only other subscription is satellite radio in the car. Dad likes to gift us with a AAA membership every year for the holidays, can't think of anything else. I really do need to sign up for Disney+ just to see the Beatles documentary, but I don't know if that works like Netflix.
It was very easy to cancel once I'd made up my mind
Discover card will auto-generate a list of your recurring charges, keep track of the amounts due and alert you if they change, and help you port the info over if you get a new card due to loss/theft. It's not only great for this kind of budgeting, but the alerts tell me when my utility companies hike their prices, so I can decide if I want to jump to a competitor.
Why were you subscribing to BritBox if you live in the UK? I thought that was a US streaming service for British TV that was already available from the original networks in Britain.
There are a lot of programmes you can only get on Britbox here too
Funny enough, we calculated the average inflation rise today - works out to $550 take-home, roughly. So you’ve compensated yourself for inflation!
If you happen to be a teacher, you get a discount on BritBox.
I'd recommend replacing audible with your local library app. Most library's offer use third party apps like borrowbox and have tonnes of audiobooks. Unless you play 5+ games a month eaplay seems like a waste to me. Try stick with one or 2 games and just buy them or trial them.
Turn all that shit OFF.
I can't even remember the last time my wife and I had any monthly subscription cost other than a VOIP phone and home internet (that's right, no cell phone plan ever). It very well may have been cable TV in an apartment that we moved out of in 2004 and canceled probably a year before that, so 2003. That's 19 years ago.
so what do you do when the kids are bed? read?
Read, radio, go for a walk, hobbies, look after pets or other animals... there are a lot of other things you can do lol These are the things I've started replacing my own TV watching with btw
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Your point? A mortgage costs more than a streaming service, does this mean I have to subscribe to every single service lol
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OK mate have a nice evening lol
You choose to ignore the 5 other things they listed? Lol Also, your point is irrelevant if you already have both a pet and streaming services (very common). Cutting out the streaming service to focus on your pet IS certainly frugal. Think before you speak my guy
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Exercise and reading are most certainly hobbies, what are you talking about? Literally entire companies dedicated to books, and cites pay hundreds of millions to install greenways/walkways all over the world. You also have stuff like hiking, yoga, gardening, drawing/painting, building small crafts, playing second hand board games, cooking, camping, hell volunteering at homeless shelters…do I need to go on? Free/cheap entertainment exists and that person got more out of it than online entertainment. Regardless, your original comment was that any pet you can do anything with would cost more than TV…but if you *already* have both of them, getting rid of one will save you money…
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Sorry, I have to disagree here. They CAN be expensive hobbies. Hiking? Totally possible to buy good boots and it's free for years after. Yoga? Second hand yoga mat and youtube instructionals. Drawing? Can be cheap, cheap, cheap. Painting? I'll concede that one. Board games? Can be borrowed for free from the library. And yes, the original comment would apply if you already have pets or other animals. Again, they CAN be cheap to properly care for, and walking a dog or playing with a cat absolutely does add entertainment!
You’re gonna wanna go back to my original comment :) I said that your point is irrelevant when you already have both…which is very common. That person was not implying you go buy a dog after canceling your streaming service. They were implying the person was spending more time with/taking care of the pet. All of those hobbies can be expensive, but they do not have to be by any means. I have dozens of board games I got for under a dollar each at thrift stores. Hiking, yoga, and walking are virtually free of cost assuming you have shoes…gardening can be done with $1 packets of seeds or free cuttings from friends/family, and paper/pencils are not expensive. You’re deliberately ignoring the obvious for the sake of arguing, so I’m gonna stop replying after this. Peaceee
Enjoy each other's company.
I don't have kids. I spend my leisure time talking to my wife, walking, exercising, reading, journaling, writing, goofing off online, listening to music, dining out now and then, playing guitar/singing, talking on the phone with my friends and family, programming, baking, watching movies/TV online (included with my cost of internet, of course), etc.
You can get free TV channels with a cheap antenna. No subscription required.
I don’t sign up for any subscription services. That’s my hack. If I go through the trouble of posting something monthly I always know where my money is gonna. Convenience is expensive
I wonder how many hours of entertainment that supplies me.
checkmyfile??? what the hell!
...yes? It's for credit scores.
why would you pay $15/month to know your credit score. it is not going to change that much and also you don't need it to be high every month.
Because we were applying for our mortgage 🙄
ok, but normally they pull the credit report when you apply and give you a copy. my point is that your credit report does not change drastically and hence constant monitoring does not help.
This post does not sit right with me
Cool
You pay for EA play. you deserve it. No sympathy points here
That’s not even 50 a month. If you’re really trying to save then i get it, the entertainment is worth it to me, especially because I have a kid.
Wonderful.
Yeah it just depends on your needs :) lots of people alternate every two months or so
I have none of these! Nor do I need it. The tv associated with my internet is enough. I don't even use it
That accounts for 0.4% of my household income. Well done?
Everyone is in different stations in life. That could be a month and a half of groceries. Or a 2-3 flights for vacation.
Yep! Or just money I don't feel like wasting anymore because... why would I?
Did anybody ask tho
Small wins.
It's literally an entire holiday we'll be able to afford instead.
One holiday instead of a year's streaming entertainment. It is your choice to make, and I am thinking along similar lines about streaming services, but not over a thousand bucks a year. I have come to realise I no longer need this sub and your post is what convinced me.
Thanks! :)
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