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Are you spending too much on subscriptions? Breaking down our monthly subscription spend, the value of Disney+, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Spotify, Apple TV, and YouTube Premium... From hidden subscription creep to deciding what to cut, how do I balance cost of living with family needs. Who am I going to annoy by deleting one of these streamers? And who will think of the Tech Bros? What will happen to The Broligarchy?
Why we cancel THIS subscription....
TRANSCRIPT: (CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE)
THIS IS THE TRANSCRIPT - CLICK PLAY ON THE VIDEO ABOVE!
Do you feel like you're maybe spending a bit too much money on subscriptions right now? We added up all of the subscriptions that we're subscribed to at the moment. There was some on there that we'd completely forgotten about. It was, it was a bit of a surprise. I've got the list on screen now. It comes to 72 a month.
I just know in my bones that I'm paying too much. I don't know what enough is, but I know that this is too much. The figures on the screen are in British Pounds, but they could easily be in Euros or Dollars. I'm sure you're facing this yourselves. That you've, you've managed to, you've managed to get subscription creep, over time.
And each subscription feels crucial. I mean, each one feels so, uh, It feels like such a big move, to cancel any of them. So I thought, well, what if I, kind of, uh, be kind to myself, and just, just choose one. All I need to do is choose one subscription to cancel, and I can't do it. I can't. Each one of these companies delivers a little bit of value, uh, to our lives.
I feel like I'm a piggy bank being turned upside down and shaken every month. So first up is Disney Plus, and I've got mixed feelings about Disney Plus. It's partly because we tried, we did the free trial, and then when we cancelled it, they still kept, they charged us. So we got off to a bad footing. I've also, I know this is really particular to me, but I've also got some beef with Disney because they didn't give me any paternity leave when I had my second child.
Uh. And I thought that was a bit rich for a company earning, I think, a billion from families to not give paternity leave. Um, and I know I should let go of it, but it is, it is a little bit of a grudge. So Disney is probably being used the most by my daughter at the moment, watching every episode of The Simpsons.
She's also binge watching. A lot of, uh, sitcoms on there and I, I want to encourage that. I, I think, uh, The Simpsons and Sister, Sister and Modern Family probably teach you more about the world than, than I could. So it's good to subcontract that to the Mouse House. And at five per month, that's one of the, the cheapest ones, I guess.
The ads are a bit weird though. I've saw, I saw an ad break and it was just like literally for, you know, highly processed, high sugar foods. And I just thought, well, that's nice. You're at tier, you know, the poor kids get to watch, you know, the crap food that's going to damage them. Haha, serves you right for being poor, uh, which might be a theme going through these subscriptions.
The next one on the list is Amazon Prime. We've probably had that the longest and Amazon is a bit of a catch 22 because we get the free delivery. You know, we get the thing now delivered for free but, but then we buy more stuff because we've got The service that delivers it to our door next day.
Although Amazon is only eight pounds a month, if we were to cancel it I think we'd actually save a lot on all the stuff that we wouldn't buy because we can't have it now or next day and bring it to me. Apple TV is It's nine per month. I never watch it. It, it's something that my wife has got, and this is the thing with the, with the subscriptions.
I mean, this is how the tech grows and the streaming companies have got us over a barrel as a family. It's like divide and conquer. So, uh, my wife has absolutely. Glued to the morning show. I've been watching that with her, which is really rare to be watching something together So maybe it's an investment in our marriage and I can't be the one to you know Pull a subscription that someone else is enjoying and using as well But I feel, I feel like the companies know this, and I feel that they are, uh, I, I don't know, I feel, I, I know there's some psychology going on there in the delivering of dopamine.
Wouldn't it be funny if in 80 years time we think of these, uh, streaming companies in the same way that they're delivering dopamine in the same way that we think of the tobacco companies now? I can't help thinking that we're going to get to the point where we just We're just completely overwhelmed by all of this.
Well I'm completely overwhelmed by this, maybe it's just me. Tell me what you think in the comments. I'm sure I'm overthinking this but I feel like I've got to take action. I can't just carry on paying this amount of money every month for things that we're not actually watching that much. Next up is Netflix, it's the oldest, it's probably been with us.
Uh, for the longest in terms of video streaming, and it's definitely the weakest one that's on there. How much are we paying? Oh, well, yeah, so I took it down to five per month, so we're now on an ad tier. But we're really not watching it. But I feel if I cancel that one, we won't be gaining that much money.
And I'm not sure that we'd be losing anything, though. Uh, the thing I'm really disappointed with, with Netflix, is when it started, it was really good because you could watch all of these old, old movies. And I could show my kids things like Total Recall or Enchanted. They've, they've fallen by the wayside.
So now we've got, like, this big event, you know, uh, Gorefest, like, Squid Game. Which my kids have watched. I haven't watched. I haven't got the stomach for it. Maybe, I don't know, do you know what? Netflix might be quite a strong contender for dropping because I just don't think we're watching it that much at the moment.
Tell me in the comments which one you think is the weakest in your house if you've got any of these. And then it's Spotify, one of the priciest ones, but 17 per month. See, I started off one subscription for my son and it was a Christmas present. So an annual subscription worked out really well. And then my daughter wanted Spotify quite reasonably.
The trouble with the Spotify subscription is that if you start listening to stuff it really messes up the player. And it only lets you play one person at a time as well. So instead of going for the family plan I thought I'd save a few pounds by getting the But the trouble with that is that we are all on these two accounts, so effectively you get two accounts.
We've all piled on to my poor daughter's Spotify account. You should see her "Unwrapped". It is the weirdest collection of music because I've let Grandad use it as well. And Grandad is now, I think he's in the top 1 percent of the world listening to Nat King Cole Which means my daughter's Unwrapped, you know, celebrated the fact that she loves Olivia Rodriguez Gracie Jones and is one of the top listeners in the world for Nat King Cole.
I thought that was quite an achievement. I don't think she's too happy about it though because when she goes in to listen There's you know, some hairy old Rita McNeil song playing. The last one on the list It's my favourite, it's YouTube Premium, and I only got that a few months ago. I absolutely adore it.
It's so nice to watch YouTube without ads, and I know that I'm a, I'm a YouTuber, I actually earn money from the ads, uh, and not nearly as much money from YouTube Premium, but it's just so It's helpful to, when you, when I call up a video to not sit through 30 seconds. It's the subscription I love the most, and probably the one I need the least.
Plus, it is the most expensive one on there. But I've got to weigh that up against it being my job. Uh, I watch a lot of YouTube. I love YouTube,
so I don't know now which one, which one to, to cut. Which one would you kill? Let me know in the comments. I think it's going to be either YouTube Premium or Netflix. I know this is a, a different kind of video on the channel, but it, it does feel really good. It feels really good to sound off about some of the things hitting our family at the moment.
It'd be really good to hear which subscriptions you've cut. And do you miss them? Do you regret any subscription that you've cut? Or have you had to take any flak from your family for the choice you've made? This is part of a bigger thing where it's all our fault. We're being, just given these amazing dopamine delivery devices.
Well it's on you, of course you should pay for this. You know, we're paying 72 a month for subscriptions. Even, like, five years ago, when we had DVDs, you know, before streaming. If I said to the family, I'm gonna buy seven DVDs every month, that would be too much. It would just be, we just would not, I don't think we would have got through them.
Because, when they were kids, they'd have things they'd like to watch again and again. To have seven DVDs That'd be like 84 DVDs a year. So after five years, we'd have hundreds of DVDs in the house. We just wouldn't do it. We wouldn't do it. Maybe one or two as a treat, but, but seven every month. I don't know, it just feels like it's being put on us, somewhat.
And the tech bros, having a great time. You know, they're turning up to inaugurations, throwing in money for it. You know, that's, that's, that's my money. That's what they're spending my money on. Lording it up with the other tech bros. All because we are scummy dopamine addicts. I wish there were a way that we could kind of wean ourself off.
And then we'd be able to spend the time on something else, instead of being all in separate rooms on devices. But the problem is clearly us. We are the problem in this, uh, in this scenario. So I've got to take action. I've got to have a board meeting with my family, with my CFO, and we've got to decide, I think, on which ones to cut.
So the ones that I'm going to propose to the family. Cutting, tonight, is YouTube Premium or Netflix, but I'm really going to miss YouTube Premium. I'm really going to miss it, because it's so good. If you reach this point, thank you for hitting the thumbs up button, it really helps us to keep this channel going.
And thanks for going along with this experiment, uh, we'll see if we, if, if I can share any more glimpses into our life, and right here is what YouTube knows you are going to love watching next.
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