Cutting costs = cancel Netflix?

[Lykke1000]

Inspired by a previous thread about coping on a high salary with a breakdown of all monthly expenses.
Have you noticed that the expenses that always get mentioned are subscriptions, especially Netflix. My Netflix is £4.99 and just looked up that Disney is the same. Sound weirdly out of proportion to suggest cutting it out first thing. True, it’s not essential but if at least one person in the family actually uses it daily then it’s a pretty cheap per hour of entertainment.
TV licence is another story ( I don’t pay it as I genuinely don’t need it).

A takeaway coffee or a pint (once a month) costs the same but is way worse price for 15 mins of entertainment.

What are your thoughts?

I suppose it’s just a ‘luxury’ that can be cut back upon if you really need to make savings.

Although I agree that the value isn’t necessarily the same as the price…

I also think it’s the modern version of ‘sky TV’ - but that was actually quite expensive, could be >£100.

In general though, I avoid direct debits as they can mount up without you realising. I do have Netflix and Disney though. And a TV licence.

Yeah my Netflix is 12.99. I remember last time I saw the payment thinking, Jesus, that’s gone up. That should be 2 screens and no adverts but I feel something has changed. My Disney is also maybe 8.99.

I subscribe to most of them to be honest because separately they aren’t a large cost but together they do add up. I always say I will cancel one but each of them gets used every day.

it would save money to cancel but the replacements wouldn’t be free either.

How do you get so much? Most are £200 max and you have limited timeframes you can switch back within. Over the last few years I have essentially used all of them and am no longer able to continue to get the full benefit.

We have the standard one but have bundled it in with Sky as it is a couple of pounds cheaper. We have the no ads version of all the streaming platforms as I find them so annoying, also you can't download on some of the advert ones which we use when we go away. Neither Disney nor Paramount allow downloads on the ads version. The price does add up though. TV is a lot more expensive than a few years ago. Netflix also doesn't offer a cheaper yearly subscription like the others do.

I did not know this!! Thx you!!

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

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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….

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

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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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.