- It's a common complaint that streaming
can cost just as much as cable these days.
And that's true, it can,
if you pay for literally everything out there.
But the reality of streaming is that you get a choice.
It's a beautiful thing, freedom.
But that much choice requires discipline.
So today we're gonna talk about
budgeting for your streaming services.
I'm going to give examples of three different budget tiers
and how I would fill them starting from least
and going to most expensive.
Obviously, I can only do this for myself,
you know your situation and your tastes better than I do,
so I'm not presenting the absolute must have bundles,
but I am gonna show you an example
of how I would go about doing this.
So are you ready?
Strap in?
Let's dive in.
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Thanks for joining me today, everybody.
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All right, so let's get to it.
Like I said up top, the trick here is
we need to set a budget and stick to it.
We could go with a monthly budget,
since that's how most streaming services,
price their services, you know, by the month.
But instead I'm gonna talk about an annual budget
and I'm gonna make that clear
as to why in just a few moments.
First, let's talk about what we have to choose from
based on their monthly costs.
Okay, so we've got Netflix, we've got the Disney+, Hulu,
ESPN+ bundle, we'll just call that the Disney bundle
from here on out.
We've got HBO Max, Apple TV+, Paramount+, Discovery+,
Prime video and you'll notice that Peacock
is missing from this list.
I'll tell you why in just a few minutes.
We'll get back to that.
Originally, my budget tiers were gonna be 30, 50
and 80 bucks a month, but I decided to go annual on this
so that I could more easily mix in things
like sports streaming, like MLB TV,
which I just reactivated for the year.
With that in mind, the new budget tiers for this video
are 400, 600, and 1,000 per year.
The question is, what can we fit in there?
Well, let's start with the easy one.
I say it's easy, but it's the lowest tier
the $400 per year tier here.
And I say, it's easy because restricting your
budget like that actually makes you kind of focus
on what it is you would actually want to watch.
And that can provide a little more clarity for you.
Sometimes it's nice
to chop that budget down a little bit, right?
So with that in mind, I'm gonna go with the Disney bundle,
Apple TV+, Paramount+ and Discovery+.
That comes out to 348 bucks a year.
Me a little bit of room for tax, that sort of thing.
So why did I choose these ones?
Well, it's pretty simple.
In my situation, it's me, my wife and two kids at home
and so there's something in here for everybody to enjoy.
Simple as that.
So what if we bump it up to $600 a year?
Now I've got a little bit more room to work with
and in some ways it's easier
because I can bring more services in.
But on the other hand, it's harder,
because now I have to decide
which ones are worth bringing into the fold.
Well, in this case, I'm actually going to kick
Paramount+ and Discovery+ from my lower bundle,
bring in Prime Video and HBO Max.
So now my $600 a year bundle looks like this.
I've got Netflix, HBO Max, Prime Video and Apple TV+.
That comes out to just under 565 bucks per year.
Again, a little bit of wiggle room,
you can factor taxes in there, or you can just say,
Hey, I've got a little extra room,
if I want to sign up for this or that service
for one month or two months, just to watch some show.
And now we get to our top tier bundle.
$1,000 a year.
And this one definitely throws a wrench in the works
because we're gonna bring in something
that we haven't been able to up to this point
and that is live TV streamers.
So I'm talking to YouTube TVs, Hulu lives, Sling TV,
that sort of thing.
While there are exceptions out there,
if you only get half of a Sling TV subscription,
or if you go with Philo or something like that,
there are exceptions.
But for the most part,
if you're going to get a live TV streamer,
a paid version, a cable imitator,
it's going to cost you at least 50 bucks a month.
Usually more like 65 plus.
That 50 bucks a month is $600 a year.
That would fill our entire middle tier.
That just blows the budget right outta the water.
So we had to save it until we got to this tier.
And as it aside, these services are so expensive
that it makes me wonder if the people
who are complaining about having to pay for streaming,
just like they had to pay for cable
are really just paying for this streaming version of cable.
It's expensive either way you go.
Did that make any sense?
Whatever it's a rant, it doesn't have to.
So if we do want to put a live TV streamer in here,
here's an example of what we could do.
I can bring in YouTube TV at 65 bucks a month
and Netflix that already, just those two,
gets us to $966 a year, just under our $1,000 limit.
Yikes, but still, if a live TV streamer is important to you
then there is that option for you.
As an alternative, let's look at this set of streamers.
Okay, I've got Netflix, I've got Disney,
the Disney bundle, HBO Max, Apple TV+, Paramount+,
Discovery+, and Prime Video all in the same bundle
and then I can put in my MLB TV yearly cost at $129
and that comes out to $981.96.
Almost exactly the same prices we had before
but with a ton of other options in there.
So the moral of this story is if you let go of cable
and I mean, really let go of cable.
Even the cable imitators, you can save a ton of money
or have room for a lot more entertainment options.
And of course, whatever your budget is,
you can always mix in the free streamers.
This is where Peacock comes in.
I left it off my list because it has a free tier
that's pretty darn good.
It does have the premium tier, as well,
and you could go for that, but you don't have to.
But you also have things like Tubi and like Pluto TV,
IMDB TV, The Roku Channel, all sorts of options
to give you a ton of free content,
that's generally going to be commercial supported.
And if you wanna get some other ideas on how to fill out
your streaming package with free content,
check out my top 10 free channels on fill in the blank.
I've done Roku, I've done Fire TV, Apple TV,
Google TV, all of'em.
So search this channel and you'll find a bunch of those.
Okay, so now we've seen what would fit in my budget,
whichever tier I go for, but I'm curious about yours.
Which streaming apps just don't make the cut
or which ones have to make the cut?
For me, apple TV+, I love it so much,
It's going to be in whatever bundle I to choose,
which is easy cuz it's only five bucks a month.
But Netflix, it didn't make the cut in that first tier.
So I'm curious what the must haves are for you,
what your budget is, how you come to those decisions.
Please let us know in the comments.
Let's have some conversation
and have a good time trying to figure out what
the best streamers are out there for each of us.
All right, everybody, thanks for watching.
Don't forget it to like and subscribe
if you enjoyed the video and don't forget
to come by here every Friday at 2:00 p.m. Eastern
for the live streams that I do right here on this channel.
I'd love to see you there.
Have a good one.