TV

Last weekend, we cleaned up our subscription services. We were paying $4.99/month for Paramount Plus, $8.59/month for Disney +, $19.34/ month for Hulu, ESPN+, and HBOMax.

$32.92 a month is not hateful, but Hulu and HBOMax were going to increase in price, while the commercials on Paramount + were too many for our liking.

We're now basically paying $22.36 a month. Saving $10 month is probably more work than it's worth, but it's like shopping for car insurance... rates ALWAYS increase, so it an annual assessment is probably worthwhile to save $$$$.

We've never had cable. We've always had pretty good luck getting channels through rabbit ears. We've had a Roku since before Darcy was born. We had Netflix for a long time, but dropped it after we got Hulu. We've had Prime, but we never keep Prime beyond whenever we like to has the free deliveries. We added Disney + when it came out. Since we already had Hulu, we added ESPN+ for a penny by upgrading to the Disney + bundle. When HBOMAX came out, it wasn't an app for Roku, so we had to add it onto our Hulu account. Jennifer likes Paramount +, so we added it recently.

Jennifer was really getting annoyed by the Paramount + commercials, so we looked into upgrading.

Adding individual subscriptions isn't something we do on a whim. Usually, the service is deeply discounted through promotion or not being Ads-free. My credit cards all seem to have promotions. We actually got Paramount + for less than a buck originally.

Anyways, Sam's Club currently sells Paramount + $50 gift cards for $42.88, so we bought 2 and ordered an ad-free annual subscription. (In order to use the gift cards, you need to add the cards to your existing profile BEFORE upgrading since gift cards are not a means of paying on checkout.)

We don't use Hulu, so we canceled it. Since we canceled Hulu, we had to also cancelled the Disney Bundle since it was a separate account that only covered ESPN+

Since we canceled Hulu, we had to create an account directly with HBOMAX. The latter would not let us create an account until the Hulu subscription lapsed. When it finally lapsed, we noticed that commercial free HBOMAX was being discounted for $7.49 a month for 6 months if you sign up by 9/26. For whatever reason, renewing the subscription was easier if we created a new account with my email.

We still had Disney + being billed monthly. I noticed it was cheaper if we got an annual subscription ($85.99). I checked Sam's Club to see if they had gift cards, they didn't, but Ibotta has a 50% back bonus up to $15 for new and upgrade subscribers.

We mostly saved by canceling Hulu, but we added Paramount+ without commercials which would have offset the savings if we we didn't look for the deals available.