SIX simple TV & music changes to save you £100s by Christmas & more next year

IF you want to save some cash quickly in the run up to Christmas, slashing your TV costs is an easy way to get the job done.

You can easily trim the cost of your telly services over the next two months, and you don’t even have to miss out on top TV channels, shows and movies. Better still, if you keep it up into next year, your savings could go through the roof.

Trick #1 – Rotate subscriptions

Above all else, the easiest way to slash your subscriptions is to rotate them.

There are loads of services competing for your wallet – and your eyeballs.

And if you stay subscribed to Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV, Now TV, and Amazon Prime Video all year round, you’ll be left seriously out of pocket.

Here’s how much the top plans for each of those cost each month:

• Netflix – £18.99 (Premium)
• Disney+ – £14.99 (Premium)
• Apple TV – £9.99
• Now TV – £9.99 (Entertainment)
• Amazon Prime – £11.98 (Prime without ads)

That’s already £65.94 a month, or £791.28 a year.

And that’s not even mentioning other services like Discovery+, Paramount+, and sports subscriptions. Probably best not to think about your £12.99 Spotify (which you could replace with the free music streaming from Amazon Prime) either.

Anyway, it’s simply not necessary to keep all of those subscriptions ticking over all year round, unless you’ve got multiple heads to watch them all.

The much better option is to have one for a month or two, then switch to the next one.

Keep rotating through them until you get back to the start.

That way, you’re only paying for a single service each month, but you still get to watch all of that service’s content each year.

It’ll take a bit more effort, but look at the cost if you pay for the following in a year:

• Netflix – 3x months (£56.97)
• Disney+ – 2x months (£29.98)
• Apple TV – 2x months(£19.98)
• Now TV – 2x months (£19.98)
• Amazon Prime – 3x months (£35.94)

That comes to a grand total of £162.85. So you’d have saved £628.43 over the course of the year or about £52 a month. And you’d still get to watch all of the telly in that year.

This is a great tip if you’re saving for Christmas at the moment too – running all of the services above would normally cost £131.88, but you could cut that to the cost of two, probably less than £20. That’s more than a £100 saving to go towards the mince pies.

Trick #2 – Plan reduction

Another thing that catches bill-payers out is laying down money on a subscription tier you don’t need.

Many TV services now offer multiple layers of subscription, so you might be able to find a saving without fully quitting a specific app.

For instance, Netflix has three tiers:

• Standard with ads – £5.99
• Standard – £12.99
• Premium – £18.99

There’s a good chance that you don’t need Premium.

The main benefit of a Premium membership is 4K TV, but if you only have one 4K telly, or none at all, then you’re probably better off with Standard.

And if you’re happy with ads, you could be paying £5.99 instead of £18.99 – a £12 monthly saving.

Disney+ also has a similar pricing structure with £5.99, £9.99 and £14.99 options.

But again, if you don’t need 4K and are happy to watch ads, you could go for the lowest tier and save £9 a month.

If you’re only paying for Amazon Prime for the TV service, you could also move from Prime (£8.99) to Prime Video Only (£5.99).

So if you dropped down to a lower tier on those three apps, you’d save £48 in two months.

And over the course of a year, you’d claw back £288.

That’s not even counting combining this tactic with the subscription swapping method I mentioned earlier.

Trick #3 – Apple One

For Apple customers, there’s another way to cut your bills that involves Apple TV.

There’s a service called Apple One that bundles all of your subscriptions together.

So if you’re already paying for a few Apple subscriptions – including Apple TV – it’s a great way to cut your overall bills.

There are three different Apple One plans, and all of them include Apple TV as standard.

So imagine you’re paying for Apple Music (£10.99), Apple Arcade (£6.99), and iCloud+ (£0.99). That’s a total monthly bill of £18.97.

Well the entry-level Individual tier of Apple One only costs £18.95, includes all three of those services, and chucks in Apple TV (worth £9.99) too.

APPLE ONE – THE THREE PLANS

Here’s what Apple One might cost you…

Apple One Individual

£18.95 a month (saving £10)

• iCloud+ 50GB
• Apple TV+
• Apple Music
• Apple Arcade

Apple One Family

£24.95 a month (saving £12)

• iCloud+ 200GB
• Apple TV+
• Apple Music
• Apple Arcade
• Share with up to five people

Apple One Premier

£36.95 a month (saving £28.99)

• iCloud+ 2TB
• Apple TV+
• Apple Music
• Apple Arcade
• Apple Fitness+
• Apple News+
• Share with up to five people

Picture Credit: Apple

For the top-tier of Apple One, you also get 2TB of iCloud storage, plus Apple Fitness+ and Apple News+, with a total monthly bill of £36.95 – saving you £28.99 a month.

So it’s worth checking your Apple billing to see if you could save some money.

Trick #4 – Family Sharing

Family Sharing is where you can start to get really powerful with the savings.

Loads of TV services have a Family Sharing option for splitting your bills.

Now this won’t be useful for everyone – but if you’ve got multiple people paying for a subscription in your household, it’s a must.

Netflix lets you share your subscription with anyone in your actual house, so that’s a must.

But you can also pay £5 a month extra to share your subscription with a member outside of your household.

Disney+ has a similar scheme for £3.99/£4.99 a month.

Amazon and Apple both run Family Sharing schemes that let you share your accounts within your households.

So you shouldn’t have multiple people in your family paying for Amazon Prime or Apple TV. It’s literally throwing away money.

You can still have your own accounts and watchlists – but you can just have the one bill.

Spotify also has Duo and Family plans that can be shared for less money than paying for plans individually.

This is one of the most effective ways to bring down your household streaming bills.

Trick #5 – Free alternatives

Another easy hack is to just switch away from premium telly services to free rivals.

There are loads of what the industry calls FAST apps.

That stands for free ad-supported streaming television, which isn’t the most exciting name.

But FAST apps give you free telly, including live channels plus on-demand TV shows and movies.

The only real catch is that you’ll have to sit through ads. But that’s often the case even with premium TV services.

Here are some of the most popular FAST apps:

• Tubi
• Pluto TV
• Xumo Play
• Rakuten TV
• Plex TV

You’re bound to find at least one of them on your TV or streaming device of choice.

And if you can combine multiple FAST apps, you might find that you’re able to ditch a proper subscription or two.

Better still, Rakuten TV just launched a channel called 100% Christmas, so that’s great timing for the festive season.

Trick #6 – Freebies / discounts

There are loads of other ways to cut your TV bills via freebies and discounts.

For instance, Sky customers get both Netflix and Discovery+ for free.

And if you’re a Sky Cinema subscriber, you’ll also get free Paramount+.

If you’re a Club Lloyds member with Lloyds Bank, you can claim a year of Disney+ for free.

And if you’re a student, you can sign up to Apple Music for cheap (£5.99 instead of £10.99 a month). And once you’re signed up, you get access to Apple TV for free – as long as you keep your Apple Music Student subscription running.

Students (and 18-22 year olds) can also get discounted Amazon Prime.

WHAT YOU’LL NEED TO SIGN UP FOR APPLE MUSIC STUDENT SUBSCRIPTION

Here’s what you’ll need before you subscribe, according to Apple…

“You must be a student studying a foundation degree, bachelor’s degree, post-graduate degree or equivalent higher education course at a university or college,” Apple explains.

And you’ll need the following:

• Make sure you know your Apple Account email address or phone number and password.
• You need a valid payment method added to your Apple Account.
• Make sure you know your student ID and can access your student email to verify your student status.

Picture Credit: Apple

It costs half-price (£4.49 a month), and also includes Amazon Prime Video.

Make sure to check your benefits on your phone, TV, and broadband plans, because you might find that you’ve got a hidden discount just waiting to be unlocked.