I was recently out having some beers with friends when one suggested that next time we watch football at his house. He set up a home bar in his basement and we could watch three games at once. Having recently set up a TV and projector in my own basement, and being very proud of figuring out how to use one Fire Stick to stream to both TVs, I asked how he set this up. He told me each TV had its own cable box. Holy shit.
Each cable box provided by our cable company costs $5/month. With three in his basement, one in his living room, and one in each of his four bedrooms, my friend was paying $40/month in equipment charges alone! Add on the Gold level cable package, HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Starz/Encore, and the super fast 400Mbps internet he had to have (even though he admittedly only browses the web and sends emails), my friend was paying around $325/month just for cable. But wait there’s more!
Nothing cool is on regular cable anymore, so you have to get the streaming services. He’s paying for the Hulu/Disney+ bundle ($12.99/month), Netflix ($8.99/month), and Amazon Prime ($119/year). That’s $357/month on entertainment. He then told me that he recently discovered Kodi, so he’s been streaming new release movies instead of buying a new Bluray every week (for the sake of argument I’ll assume Bluray disks are $19.99, so an additional $80/month). So until recently my friend was spending $437/month just to make sure he always had something to stare at on his television. That’s more than I pay for my Highlander, and that’s my big splurge. I wish it ended there, but it doesn’t.
My friend and his wife both commute. They like to listen to music in the car, but FM radio sucks (unless you love car commercials), so they pay for Spotify premium ($9.99/month) and Amazon Music (7.99/month). And both of them “love to read” so they have Audible (14.95/month). Someday I’ll rant about how listening to someone read a book is not reading, but that’s for another day. This is an additional $33/month in audio entertainment services that this family is paying for. We’re up to $470/month if you count the Bluray disks he finally stopped buying.
My friends are well aware of my frugality. It often annoys them to no end. I felt like being annoying, so I probed deeper into this conversation.
His wife gets Birchbox shipments every month ($15/month), and she’s participating in one of the latest shake fad diets (he says this costs over $100/month) because the girls at Orange Theory ($59/month) recommend and sell it. My friend also belongs to Planet Fitness (~$15.66/month) but he never really goes.
This one family is paying $357 for cable and internet and streaming video, $33 for streaming audio, $75 for gym memberships, $15 for Birchbox, and over $100 for meal replacements (on top of a grocery bill for a whole family). That’s a total pre-tax cost of $580/month. Tack on taxes and it’s another $50/month, so $630. Just this one conversation over a few beers and I now know that my friend is spending over $7500/year on what amounts to a bunch of subscription services to keep his family entertained.
To each their own, but holy shit! What’s more is he wears his cable costs like a badge of honor. When I point out that I get basic cable (channels 2-13) and have one cable box, only because cancelling cable entirely would cost me more than keeping basic, he calls me cheap and goes on about how I wont get to watch everything. The other guys had pretty high cable bills too, but he was quick to point out that his is the highest. So I guess he’s the most entertained of us all.
In current times, with all of the subscription services available to us, it’s so easy to look at the monthly cost of something we like and write it off. “It’s only seven dollars a month!” We say about Amazon Music. But dollars have a nasty habit of adding up, and all those services that only cost a few bucks here and there become hundreds each month, which become thousands each year.
As this business model thrives, it expands to every aspect of our lives. Video games have in game subscriptions (I hate you EA). Apps are all vying for your dollars here and there. I used to drive a Hyundai, even their remote start capability is a subscription service! The list goes on and on.
That night out was an eye opener for me because I often forget that not everyone thinks the way I do. They think that being able to afford all of these things shows people that they’re rich. Or worse, they don’t even think about it at all. They just get it because they want it. I can’t fault them. People are free to live their lives however they like. I’ll just never understand that way of thinking.
Freed by 50 