Unless you’ve been under a rock or just don’t “do” entertainment you’ve either gotten a notice from Netflix or heard the chatter about Netflix going all crazy with their pricing. Those are my words. I doubt Netflix would see it the same. If anyone is cheap frugal, it’s me, and I’m all for getting something for nothing.
- New jeans for .47 cents? That’s me
- Free Papa John’s pizza? That’s me
- Flying to Europe last summer for $50? That’s me (We went to Europe last summer! Can you believe I didn’t blog about that!)
- Going to Disney world for free? That’s me (We went to Disney last December for free! Can you believe I didn’t blog about that!)
So, you can imagine my outrage when Netflix considered it necessary to split their pricing of on-demand viewing and DVDs-mailed-to-your-door viewing. I used to pay $7.99 +tax for unlimited on-demand and one movie delivered at a time. That was a good deal to me. I hadn’t watched most of what Netflix offers on demand and we don’t go to the movies very often so we were rolling for a while and our cost per viewing was cheap. Then they increased the price of that plan to $9.99 (plus $1.50 in taxes). Now they’ve notified the world they’re increasing that rate to $15.98 + tax. That’s an increase of 60%, am I doing my math right?
I have some choices to make. We’ve been watching so many shows and movies that it seems we’ve watched all the good ones. I’m stuck now sifting through B movies that I think may be good or may make me want to poke out my eyeballs. Ash and Reagan are now on their second go around of all the Phineas & Ferb episodes. We don’t use the 1 DVD out ability as much as we should. That to me is definitely NOT worth close to $20 a month. Nor is it even worth it to just do the instant streaming for $8 +tax.
I’ve looked into Amazon Prime membership because now they allow free streaming of their on-demand movies and shows. But their selection isn’t very stellar. And the Prime membership is something I’ve always gotten for free through trials, etc. I have yet to pay $79 per year and it doesn’t look like I’m going to start.
I looked at Hulu as well and their membership service just doesn’t excite me either. Plus, with Amazon Prime and Hulu I can’t watch the on-demand selections on my tv. I’d have to watch them on my computer. Lame because I’m using my computer to multitask while I’m watching the movies or shows.
I just looked up Blockbusters video rental program. That’s $10 +tax a month. I don’t know. I think I’ve pretty much made up my mind. Since school is starting back in September and I’m going to have to be a good Mommy and actually go to bed at a decent hour so I can get up before the kids and be all chipper and encouraging and ready to teach each day…I don’t need to be paying any company our money to watch stupid stuff. I’ll save over $200 a year and just hope that if there is something I want to watch I can catch it on Hulu (like The Voice this last season. I somehow rarely watched it live, but would pull it up on Hulu the next day).
So, thanks for letting me rant and hash this out. Free therapy!
P.S. We don’t do cable either.
Not So SAHM 
I agree with you. All we do is streaming on Netflix. We dont have cable or anything, but Netflix is the way my daughter watches her shows on tv. She has DVDs but it gets to the point of where she knows what they will say before they even say it, haha! So, I don’t know what we will do either, but might just have to pay the extra, even though I will regret it.
We only do the Netflix streaming (which is primarily for the boys), and then we have a trial thing with Hulu+ going on right now. I was exceptionally disappointed in that I can’t watch the majority of stuff available on Hulu through Hulu+. Right now we’re just connecting my laptop to the tv to be able to access those shows we want to see, but it hasn’t been a big deal yet. We don’t have cable anymore… ditched it when we moved… and haven’t missed it really. The only thing I was sad to not be able to get was Disney (Jack LOVES some of the Disney Junior shows). But he hasn’t seemed to miss it…
Okay, $50 Europe tickets, free disney, and free Amazon prime… please share your secrets!!!!! 🙂 I would love to know.
Just stumbled upon your blog via this Netflix post. You are brilliant. I hope you have had the tenacity to kick the Netflix habit and get to bed on time.