WHO can afford full-price trips to the cinema these days? You need a mortgage just for the popcorn – never mind posh seat upgrades for the whole family.
Thankfully there are loads of ways to slash the cost of at-home movie days this summer, potentially saving you hundreds on bills and trips to the cinema. The other bonus is: you can make your own snacks!
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TV TRICK #1 – GET YOURSELF FREE DISNEY+
If you’re looking for family-friendly flicks, you can’t go wrong with Disney+. It’s crammed with Disney originals, plus Star Wars and Marvel goodness too. This is Hollywood in app form.
You needn’t pay the full £8.99 a month (that’s £108 a year!) either. Trim those Disney+ bills right now.
If you’re a Lloyds Bank customer with a Club Lloyds current account, you can get free Disney+ for a full year.
The account is £5 a month (or free if you put at least £2,000 a month into it). And you can claim a Disney+ Standard with Ads membership, getting you Full HD viewing and two streams at once.
Tesco shoppers with Clubcards can get a tempting Disney+ perk that doubles the value of your vouchers if you spend them on the streaming service.
So you can swap £7.50 in Clubcard vouchers for a three-month Disney+ Standard With Ads subscription (usually £14.97) – or trade £13.50 in vouchers for a £26.97 Standard three-month plan.
You’ll find it in the My Rewards section of your Clubcard.
And if you’re on the O2 network, you can get a free six-month membership to Disney+ Standard – and once that’s over, you can add it to your plan as a paid extra and get £2 a month back as a discount on your airtime bill.
Potential Saving: £107.88 a year
TV TRICK #2 – SLASH YOUR AMAZON VIDEO BILL
Amazon Prime Video is chock full of quality movies – and it’s home to the wildly popular Clarkson’s Farm too.
But if you’re paying the £8.99 fee for Amazon Prime just to watch Amazon Video, there are some clever ways to bag a discount.
The most obvious discount is paying upfront for an annual £95 membership, versus the monthly option that ends up costing you £107.88.
Alternatively, you could simply pay for Amazon Video on its own. You’ll lose the other Prime benefits, but it shrinks your bill to £5.99 a month – that’s £71.88 over a year.
If you’ve got a student or young person in the house, you’re in luck. There’s a cheap membership called Prime for Students and 18-22 Year Olds. That covers a massive chunk of Brits, so you might have someone who fits the bill at home.
It’ll get you Amazon Prime for £4.49 a month (£53.88 a year), or just £47.49 if you pay the annual membership instead.
And if that wasn’t enough, this discounted Amazon Prime also comes with a mammoth six-month free trial. That’s far longer than the usual 30-day option.
So in your first year, you’d only be paying £23.75.
- Prime monthly (£8.99 monthly) – £107.88 a year
- Prime annual – £95 a year
- Prime Video (£5.99 monthly) – £71.88 a year
- Prime 18-22/student (£4.49 monthly) – £53.88 a year
- Prime 18-22/student annual – £47.49 a year
- Prime 18-22/student monthly + six-month free trial – £26.94 for first year
- Prime 18-22/student annual + six-month free trial – £23.75 for first year
Potential Saving: £84.13 a year
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TV TRICK #3 – CHECK IF YOU’RE OVERPAYING FOR NETFLIX
Can you believe that when Netflix launched in the UK in 2012, it only cost £5.99 a month? Now a Standard plan is more than double that – and Premium is over three times the price.
But these layers of membership create an opportunity: you might actually be overpaying for Netflix.
The first common mistake is paying for a 4K plan when you don’t need it.
The Premium plan costs £18.99 in the UK, and its big perk is 4K telly (of which Netflix has plenty). But there’s every chance you’re not watching Netflix on a 4K Ultra HD TV. Many televisions don’t have 4K screens, which makes a 4K plan fairly pointless.
And if you’re using an Amazon Fire Stick, Roku box, or some other streaming gadget, that ALSO needs to be 4K too – or you won’t get a 4K picture. Sadly, many aren’t, especially if you bought a cheaper model.
On top of that, most tablets and phones don’t have 4K screens, and on the tiny displays, 4K is even less important.
So consider downgrading to Standard at £10.99, saving you £96 a year. It’s the same library of content, but your streaming drops to Full HD – which is fine for most people.
Secondly, don’t ignore the newer and far cheaper Standard with Ads plan, which is only £5.99 a month. You still get Full HD resolution just like Standard, but your viewing will be interrupted by ads.
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Compared to a Premium plan, you’ll save a massive £156 a year this way.
Potential Saving: £156 a year
Mission Unaffordable! The blockbuster cost of family cinema trips
It used to be a go-to activity during the school summer holidays but the rising cost of cinema tickets has priced many families out.
A typical 2D adult ticket can range from £8 to £12, with children’s tickets often slightly cheaper. Special screenings for 3D or IMAX movies cost more. Some cinemas also add on a booking fee, which can see the price soar.
Cinema snacks and drinks can easily set you back £15 to £20. With film-branded, limited-edition food (as seen at recent Minecraft screenings) potentially costing more.
Add on a few pounds for parking or transport and you’ve easily spent between £60 and £100 on a couple of hours out.
TV TRICK #4 – SWAP YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS
One of the biggest telly mistakes we all make is paying for every subscription under the sun.
If you’re a TV fan, you might be forking out for Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Video, Apple TV+, Now TV, and who knows what else.
Stop it now – and try subscription swapping instead.
Cancel everything but just keep one subscription, and then binge on that for a month.
Now kill it off and move onto a second plan, and enjoy that app’s library for another month.
Do this with two more apps and then repeat the process. Now you’re back at the first app with some fresh content to watch.
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You’ll get to enjoy each of the app’s content all through the year, but without paying out a fortune.
Let’s say you paid for Netflix Premium (£18.99), Disney+ Standard (£8.99), Amazon Video without Prime (£5.99), and Apple TV+ (£8.99).
With all four of those running for a year, your bill would come to £515.52 over the course of a year.
If you used subscription swapping, that would drop to just £128.88. That’s a saving of £386.64. You’re paying exactly a quarter of what you would’ve spent.
And you don’t miss out on any top movies or shows either.
Potential Saving: £386.64 a year
Subscription swapping saved me a fortune and the kids loved it
Fabulous’ Associate Editor Sarah Barns tested subscription swapping with her two sons, aged three and five.
Unsurprisingly, asking my two sons to binge watch Netflix for a month was a task they took to with gusto.
We made our way through all the Hotel Transylvania, Paddington and Minions films before I cancelled the subscription (£5.99 a month with ads) and we moved on to Disney+ (£8.99, no ads).
Then, we watched the classics – Frozen, Moana and Toy Story – as well as family favourite TV shows, Bluey and Spidey and His Amazing Friends.
Finally, we ditched that and moved onto Amazon Prime (£5.99 a month, just for Prime Video). Here, we watched The Lorax, Secret Life of Pets and Sing. This streamer was probably our least favourite and I found that shows the kids wanted to watch, including the Julia Donaldson adaptions, were already available for free on BBC iPlayer.
I’d definitely keep rotating Netflix and Disney+, and would be up for giving Apple TV a go. It was fairly faff-free to cancel and rejoin the services and we found that new shows and films had been added while we weren’t members.
TV TRICK #5 – CUT YOUR APPLE TV+ COST
It may be a newer option, but Apple TV+ is now a streaming titan, with hit shows like Severance and Ted Lasso – plus a load of top movies too.
The regular free trial is only seven days and then you’ll pay £8.99 a month. But there are four other ways to bring the cost of Apple TV+ down.
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Firstly, if you’ve bought an Apple device recently – specifically a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, or Mac computer – then you can claim three months of free Apple TV+.
Just head into the Apple TV app on the device itself and you’ll see the offer just waiting for you there. It needs to be on that device, and signed into your Apple ID.
Second, students can get Apple TV+ via a separate promotion.
If you’re enrolled at a “degree-granting” uni then you can get Apple Music Student, which gets you the Spotify rival for £5.99 (instead of £10.99) for up to 48 months.
And this subscription also includes a free membership to Apple TV+ for the same time.
Just go to Apple Music > Home > Trial Offer > Student > Verify Eligiblity.
A third option is to go through Apple One, which wraps up iPhone services as a bundle and then discounts them.
All of the Apple One plans boost your iCloud storage (for backing up your iPhone media), plus give you access to perks like hiding your email and using Apple Invites.
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The cheapest Apple One plan is £18.95 and includes Apple TV+, Apple Music, and Apple Arcade, saving you £9 a month overall.
You can also bundle in Apple Fitness+, Apple News+, and add 2TB of cloud storage (plus sharing with five family members) for £36.95 a month. This saves you £27.99 a month.
The last option is to try Family Sharing, which means only one person in your home needs to pay for Apple TV+.
“One adult in your household – the family organiser – invites your family members,” Apple explains.
“When family members join, they get instant access to the group’s content and subscriptions that are eligible to be shared.
“Each family member uses their own account, so everyone’s experience stays personalised and private.”
That’ll save you money at home if you’ve got multiple family members splashing out on the subscription. And don’t worry: they all get their own profiles.
Potential Saving: £107.88 a year
TV TRICK #6 – DON’T PAY FOR TELLY!
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What’s better than cheap telly? Free telly!
One of the best things you can do for your bank balance is download a load of free TV apps.
There are some amazing options out there with hundreds of thousands of hours of movies and TV up for grabs.
Many of them even offer live TV channels too.
Usually the only downside is that you’ll need to sit through ads. But most TV apps and regular telly show you ads anyway.
Try some of these out:
- The Roku Channel
- Tubi
- Pluto TV
- Plex TV
- Amazon Freevee
And if you don’t like one, who cares? It was free to download – and it doesn’t cost a penny to delete it.
Potential Saving: As much as you like!
TV TRICK #7 – CLAIM YOUR FREE MOVIES
Last but not least: Sky customers, go check out the MySky app right now.
When you joined Sky, you will have automatically become eligible to claim a free movie.
It’s part of the Sky VIP offering, earning you a “Welcome Gift”.
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You can take your pick from the Sky Store, and then it’s yours to keep.
Just go into the app, sign in with your Sky account, and then visit the VIP section to claim it.
Once you’ve redeemed the movie, you’ll be able to watch it on the big screen through your Sky box.
Potential Saving: £5 to £10
AND IF YOU MUST GO TO THE CINEMA…
…then don’t pay full price!
There are loads of ways to slash the cost of a trip to the movies…
Amazon Prime customers can claim two movie tickets at Odeon for a tenner each month.
Or you can get a pair of posh recliner seats at Odeon Luxe for £15 – that’s £7.50 each.
They’re only available between Mondays and Thursdays – just claim the code from Amazon’s Prime Odeon deal page here and then plug it into your cinema ticket purchase at checkout.
Sky TV customers with a Sky Cinema package can get a pair of free tickets to use at Vue between Sunday and Thursday.
Just download the MySky app, go to Sky VIP, and then select Your Vue Tickets for a code.
Vodafone offers discounted cinema tickets through the VeryMe Rewards app.
One of the current perks gets you a pair of Odeon tickets for £4 per person.
And Three customers can use Three+ (the free rewards program) to get trips to the cinema for £3.
They’re only available between Sunday and Friday – just log onto Three+ to claim your code.
Picture Credit: Sky
