Cutting costs = cancel Netflix?

Any budgeting exercise needs to start with understanding what money is coming in and what is being spent; both fixed and variable costs. It is surprising to me that few people truly know their earnings and expenses.

It takes time and effort to understand all your bills, whether you are getting the best deals etc but it is a very worthwhile process.

A TV licence is £14.54 a month, or about 48p a day.

i have had my phone three years on sim only it was a hand me down from my dd, I pay £10 a month for unlimited texts/calls and 50g data.

who are you with for your phone?

my issue with my phone is if anyone comes to my house - their phones don't work as my signal is terrible - so I stick with vodaphone which works at home and I get fair usage abroad in Europe (which I need for 6 weeks a year)

as I see it the point is

Netflix is cheaper than going to the pictures/cinema
Coffee machine at home is cheaper than Starbucks 2 or 3 times a a week at £20 a week

The cost of living crisis rages on and consumers tighten their belts as food prices rise by 5%People adjust their spending downwards

instead of going out for a meal once a week they go once a month

Whilst all the small things add up unless you are about to get evicted for non payment of rent then it’s one of life’s small pleasures though I’m watching it far less as doesn’t have much on that I want to watch of late.

we have freeview and Netflix, I think given we are not paying for sky or virgin one subscription isn’t bad.
i have had my phone three years on sim only it was a hand me down from my dd, I pay £10 a month for unlimited texts/calls and 50g data.
I buy clothes from Vinted, we don’t do takeaways/coffees. I use the library.
It all adds up and gives spare money for treats I actually want.

I think it’s that many people seem to have multiple subscriptions.

Depends how many subscriptions you have. If it's just the one at £4.99 then no, it's not going to make a big saving.

However many people when they go through their subscriptions & direct debits find that they are signed up to lots & lots of 'its only £4.99 a month' and that certainly adds up if there's 20 of them.

It's worth going through direct debits & subscriptions on a monthly basis as virtually everyone finds something they are paying a subscription for but don't actually need.

Agree, I’ve been with Lebara for years. Pay £4.99 pm. Free roaming in Europe and 100 free international minutes, but not to all countries.

I think this is key really. If someine has no food, cutting subscriptions is probably a plan. If you have a massive mortgage, huge nursery fees, coverdd your food etc you are still going to feel like you have nothing left at the end of the month if you cancel Netflix

Agreed. Great value for money really. We have 3 or 4 streaming services at a time and never spend more than £20 a month. If money were tight we would drop a couple and chop and change but would be one of the very last things to go entirely. Cheap entertainment.

If you set a reminder on your phone to cancel before the month is up it works well. You still get the full month.

i

The same people always say that anyone can afford private school if they give up smoking and only have camping holidays in Cornwall, so I don’t think I would take budgeting advice from them, TBH….

One month sim with ID Mobile. Starts at around a fiver a month.

It depends on the circumstances really.

If things are really tight & you’ve already cut back as much as possible on everything else (food, bills etc) then your subscriptions may be all you have left to cancel. Our Netflix & Disney are about £9 each so it would be roughly a £20 saving.

Depending how much they’re being used, and how many you have. We ridiculously seem to have ended up with quite a few so we have Prime, Netflix, Disney, Paramount+, lots of my friends are the same, totally unnecessary and cancelling them all would probably leave us with an extra near £40 a month, which isn’t nothing if we needed it.

It’s why budgets fail - it seems obvious to cut out discretionary pleasure but all it does is make it more likely that you’ll splurge in a weak moment.

If you’re on a strict budget, having one streaming service and switching from time to time is the way to go. Also consider cancelling them all over summer as a way of encouraging yourself to get outdoors more

I see a lot of people are missing the point and scrambling to justify their Netflix subscription.

I use Netflix at the most expensive option, but I require it to work with a VPN. Its the only streaming option I've got at the moment for all the japanese anime films and I'm one of those people who like to repeatedly watch older films I like over and over again, so I think I get the value out of it.

We spend around £30 a month on subscriptions, Netflix, Prime, Disney, Spotify. If we really needed to cut down on our outgoings those would be the first things we’d cut. We’d keep Netflix and downgrade it to the cheapest package so we’d save £25 a month.

I agree. When someone is on the bread line and every penny counts then absolutely cancel Netflix.
The issue is the above average earners struggling with little left at the end of the month and wondering where it goes. Cancelling Netflix will make fuck all difference to them and it’s ridiculous when either people
suggest it or the OP themselves have done it and wondering why they aren’t suddenly feeling better off.

Smarty. SIM only with 8GB of data for £7 a month.

The regular savers pay between £85 - £135 and £175 was first direct switching amount and similar for Nationwide - plus nationwide give a bonus amount some years

so that was £350 for switching and bonus plus £210 for the regular savers - I don’t start the regular savers at the same time

use a high interest easy access account for the money going into the regular savers

presently chase are offering some good interest rates, so store the money there ad move across, that way you get interest on both - but obviously diminishing interest on the storage account

It depends how much you watch it as well, we are retired so probably have more time to fit it in.

I think people who have one streaming service at a time watch everything they want then switch are very canny.