Within the last decade, American businesses discovered that subscription revenue is among the best. Once the customer is signed up, there is little to no marketing cost to keep the money flowing.
From the consumer’s standpoint, subscription fees aren’t a budget buster since many are often $10 or less each month. But consumers who sign up for multiple subscriptions soon find that these fees quickly add up.
When he leased a new Tesla at a monthly cost of $511, Chris Kornelis started looking for things he could eliminate from his budget. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Kornelis said he focused on eliminating subscriptions – including his cable TV service – until he had covered the monthly lease payment.
“Paying for cellphone service is like paying the water bill: something I did without protest and never really thought twice about,” Kornelis wrote. “But I’d started to get curious about the ads I’d been seeing for low-cost services like Boost Mobile and Cricket Wireless.”
He said he ditched AT&T, that was costing $128 a month for two lines, and picked up Mint Mobile at a cost of about $65. Before long, he had carved $511 from his budget.
“If there is a downside to making this move, I have yet to notice it,” Kornelis wrote.
Unused streaming services
With inflation eating into consumers’ buying power over the last three years, cutting back on monthly subscription costs could provide some breathing room. Streaming services may be the first place to look.
A survey by Bango, an enterprise software provider, found that the typical consumer spends nearly $1,000 per year on streaming service subscriptions. That’s about $80 a month, which could buy a lot of groceries.
These costs will only go up in the future. Netflix and many other streaming services have raised subscription rates, justifying it by saying they need additional capital to invest in programming.
Meanwhile, there is a lot of free content available, supported by commercials. For example, the Roku Channel is a free streaming service provided by Roku, which offers a wide selection of content, including over 350 live TV channels and 80,000 movies and TV shows.
Free content
Other free services include:
Pluto TV: This service provides a mix of live and on-demand content, including movies, TV shows, and channels designed to replicate the experience of traditional live TV.
Freevee: Owned by Amazon, Freevee offers a range of movies and TV shows without a subscription fee. It was previously known as IMDb TV and is available in the U.S., UK, and Germany.
Crackle: Crackle is known for its selection of original content, classic shows, and a variety of movies. It is a free service that does not require users to purchase the content.
Vudu: While Vudu is primarily known as a service for renting and buying digital movies and TV shows, it also offers a selection of free content P.
Hoopla and Kanopy: These services are free for users with a library card from a participating library. They offer a wide range of movies and some TV shows.
Streaming services aren’t the only subscriptions that could be weighing down your budget. Consumers often sign up for credit monitoring and other services, and then forget about them.
There are several available apps that can find these forgotten subscriptions and make it easier to cancel them. Subscription Stopper and Manger is a free app whose maker claims it to be “the all-in-one app designed to effortlessly manage and cancel subscriptions.”
Photo Credit: Consumer Affairs News Department Images
Posted: 2024-03-07 12:20:31
