If you’re spoiled for choice when it comes to what to watch at night, because of multiple streaming services, then please be mindful of what this is costing you.
We are all guilty of staying up past our bedtime to binge-watch our favourite shows. But our addiction to on-demand content (and finding out what happens next) is costing us more than just our beauty sleep.
When each member of our household is streaming their preferred content, via different services on different devices, it all adds up. Especially when streaming prices just keep jumping – big time.
Lifestyle choice
I often have this discussion with my adult children: Not only does their generation have a cost-of-living issue, like everyone else, but they also have a cost-of-lifestyle issue.
They have expenses which previous generations simply didn’t have – like mobile phones, data costs etc. Case in point is the cost of streaming services. I’ve been a big fan of Bryce and Alec at Equity Mates since they started the business and have followed them closely ever since. On their Instagram feed this week they posted the subscription costs of major streaming services and how much they’ve increased over the last two years.
It is incredible. Remember inflation over that time has been 3-5 per cent … streaming prices have increased a minimum of 50 per cent over that time and some as high as 71 per cent.
Cost of entertainment
The monthly subscription fees all add up when you’re using four to five streaming services. Netflix, Stan, Apple and Kayo would cost over $100 a month … $1,200 a year – that’s equivalent to an economy flight to London.
Think about that. A flight to the UK. Or maybe it’s money which could be spent on something else? House renos, paying off debt, putting towards a property deposit or making a voluntary super contribution.
The point is, it’s not an amount to be sneezed at.
Too many streaming subscriptions?
If you find it hard to keep track of which streaming services you’ve signed up to, or get a bit lazy with cancelling them, then my adult kids gave us this tip:
Subscribe through your Apple iTunes account – because it is the easiest way to unsubscribe – and then re-subscribe later if you want to.
They rotate between streaming services depending on what’s available. Give it a go and see if you can reduce the cost of entertainment in your household too.
And maybe as a result, get more sleep. We can always do with more sleep.
