Streaming Sucks! Eliminating Expenses as Costs Creep Up #542

and we're talking about some of the different ways. First of all, that some of the different reasons why we think streaming should be less a part of your life. But also we're all gonna do some streaming, so we need to find ways to reduce that cost as well. Yeah, the practical world we live in means we all gotta stream at least a little bit, and so we've gotta talk about the whole gamut ideologue. We're not purists, know. We talk about some of these shows we watch on occasion,

for sure. And and there's what you've been watching there, if you watched anything recently, trying to finish up Stranger Things season four. Okay, so I'm not I'm not there yet. I'm not saying anything. I guess I've not watched a single episode, still trying to get settled into the new place, and I haven't. I haven't watched much tving. So you should just leave at least a few of those boxes unpacked and get that's exactly what we're gonna tell folks

to not do during this episode. But hey, did you see that article about beer being good for gut health? Oh? I did, yes, yes, yes, I thought of it. It said something like one beer a day. Beer day keeps the doctor. I know. It's like, instead of apples, who needs those? Just drink a beer every single day, and and it, yeah, increases the microbiomes in your gut. It also only had like twenty something participants in that study.

This is something like meta study, Matt, I'd rather pudget Pidgeon hole these, you know, this small study but suit my narrative. But but also obviously this is something we already knew, right, I mean, was it athena that creature comforts beer. It even features lack of basillas on the label. And that's one of the gut bacteria that's supposed to be good for you, Like, that's the bacteria that's also in yogurt that is a probiotic and so man, we've

known this for a while. Drinking kombucca also supposed to be good for that. All the fermented vegetables evidently are supposed to be really good for the kim Oh. Yeah, so actually I think kimchi and sara krat are like the number one and number two when it comes to those different fermented vegetables that you can enjoy. But yeah, you know this is something we knew and aside from just like the scientific chemistry reason why it's good for you, let me come on, everybody knows that happen a beer.

It's gonna make you less dressed, It allows you to unwind a little bit, and when you're happier in extreme moderation folks, well yeah, I mean if you're crushing crushing a pat like a case of beer every night and you have a disease that doesn't apply to you, you should be drinking much much less but a beer day, absolutely, yes, exactly. Part that's what's why we drink it on the Show's

we do it for the gut. We do it for the gut health really in here, it's just to make our bodies are stay as Finally, two machines as they are, right, that's speaking of That meant the beer we're having on this episode is called Benevolence. It's by Flying Machine, It's a Vienna lager. And we'll give our thoughts on the spear at the end of the episode. Yes, I guess you know what I'm gonna give like a gut review at the end of this episode too. Let's you know

kind of how things are going on my tummy. My gut reaction is that this is a good one. All right, Let's let's talk about streaming today, Matt, because we're gonna have to be nuanced here because people like to stream. Like this is one of those things where we can't come down hard and be like nobody should stream anything ever, because one that would not necessarily a good advice. There's good stuff out there to watch on occasion, but it's

worth talking about. And and and made me think as we were preparing for this episode about curb alerts, because you you like finding cool crop on the side of the ro like a nice curb alert. Yeah, you mentioned the slide recently on the show that you found and you you ended up putting that up in your new backyard.

It looks great. Kids are playing on it. That was a curb alert win, right, um, And then there are other things that let's say, let's say you took herb alerts to the extreme right, you found yourself driving around town for a few hours every Saturday, and your wife's like, where are you going? You're like, I'm a hunt for curb alerts. I would have a problem, not only a personal problem, but a personal relational problem, a problem with her too. She wouldn't be down with it. You know.

It's it's possible to be dedicating too much of your free time to the pursuit of free stuff. I see where you're going. Yeah, so you know curb alerts their best really when somebody nearby where you live is getting rid of an item and you're going to be able to use it in the near future, not just like hoard it and put it in the attic somewhere. And so just because you can throw it in the back

of your car doesn't mean you should, right. But Matt, if you continue done that path, and you're doing it for a few hours on the weekend, like you could you go on that show holders or something like that, you might turn into a person I barely recognize if that was the case someone I used to do right exactly. So similarly, we would say streaming subscriptions can be great, right, but doing business with too many of these streaming companies right that have the word plus at the end of it.

Why do they always like that? Why is there no good naming convention besides plus originality? Yeah, honestly, like it kind of reminds me of So this is gonna be a tangent, but Nibisco, you know, the company that makes cookies and stuff. Did you know that it stands for you used to stand for National Biscuit Company, Okay, And so like all of these companies back in the day, they always put co at the end of their name. In a similar way, I feel like all these streaming

services are just putting the plus plus. It's just kind of the go to. There's got to be a better, better naming convention that someone can come with, come up with. But uh, but yeah, it just makes me the plus co. Yeah, you should be in marketing, and and it's partly because we don't want you giving Netflix, Disney or HBO too much of your money, but really there are other reasons

too that we're gonna touch on in this topic. We don't necessarily want you dedicating a hundred dollars a month ord screaming streaming services, which it feels like that's totally possible to do right now, if if not even more, some people are spending more money than on streaming then they used to on their cable bil Yeah. Yeah. Subscriptions in general are proliferating like rabbits, and streaming services are

one of the biggest culprits within the subscription space. Actually, someone recently posted a Captain Planet gift in the Facebook group that kind of it sums up exactly how we feel about streaming at this point. Had their kids holding up their rings and saying Amazon Prime, Disney Plus, Hulu, Netflix, and then Captain Planets saying when your prices combined on the same price as cable. It is starting to feel this way that this is true because it's actually the

reality today. Uh, you know, streaming it was supposed to save us money while simultaneously giving us more choices back in the day, and you know, like when the streaming air began, that was kind of the case. Netflix was way cheaper than cable at that point, paying you know, like five nine for one DVD at a time. Uh,

and it was really the only game in town. But now that they're making multimillion dollar movies and TV shows that they released like seemingly on a on a weekly basis, Netflix is not as cheap as it was a few years back, and a bunch of competitors have also entered the space as well. But this means that we're living

in sort of this golden age of streaming content. Uh. It may never get better than it is right now, but that golden age comes with trade offs, uh, namely for your money and for your time as well as for your attention as well. Yeah, exactly. So it feels like we're spending more and more time in front of our TV's streaming content. And I get it. There's a

lot of good content to watch. There's too much, right, none of us could watch all the good stuff that we want to because there's just a deluge basically of stuff on every single service. There's there's plenty to watch for multiple lifetimes. And a recent article in Bloomberg was it was making the point that we've hit peak streaming.

Matt right, And I think you know, we've talked about living in the golden age of streaming, but we might be on the tail end of that at this point, right, So, I think so, and and and the point in that article was that we're going to see more austerity from the big companies when it comes to purchasing content, Like they're not going to be spending as much because some of them had spent two million dollars in an effort to lure the big name act ors and make some

you know, a movie that's that that's a blockbuster, and they've realized that, well, it doesn't necessarily turn into the eyeballs they want, doesn't always with the revenue they I do agree with that. I mean, so when I say golden age, I mean I think we will continue to have amazing options at our disposal. But I do think that the in general, that the different companies will be spending less money because they're seeing that they can't count

on their revenues continuing to increase. Subscriber growth was bound too slow, right, and they can't keep retaining eyeballs forever. And because there are more and more services now, people are bouncing around from service to service, they're not necessarily just paying the Netflix bill every single month. Without thinking about it, and it's it's just short lived too, because of the how bingeable things are these days, Like people will watch a show and then they're like, great, got

what I wanted, I'm out. And so it looks like some of these streaming services are going back to an old school release schedule for some of their more popular shows, like the two at the beginning and then one every single week. I think it makes a lot of sense from an economic perspective for these companies, but you know, it's probably better for everyone's health as well, yes, for

everybody watching instead of sitting down. Man, it makes me think of another meme literally started like nine nine on Friday and end at like five ams, where someone's just like, sit down for a three and a half hour movie, No way, But get me to watch nine hours of a TV show where you put little breaks in between each episode. Oh, sign me up. Yeah, even though it starts instantly, you know, streaming the next episode, and unless you tell it not to exactly, you're sitting there watching

two hours back to back, always right, right. But the products we've been paying like twelve dollars or more a month for I think they're likely to get worse in the coming years. We'll see what happens. But your bill is going to go up, the quality is going to go down. I feel like it's already happening, the writings on the wall. So this is just another reason to to reconsider which streaming services you're subscribed to and how

much you're paying for me. Yeah, yeah, So I I could foresee the quality staying the same or potentially even I don't know, maybe getting better, like a little bit.

But I do see the prices going up for sure, because honestly, like the way I see this is similar to like the ride sharing apps, right, Like we're basically your your rides are getting subsidized because these companies are wanting market share, and so like with the ride sharing apps, they're wanting to get as much market share as possible, and they're counting on that continuing growth. They're counting on

the continually increasing number of subscribers. And what we saw first quarter earlier this year was Netflix experiencing their first ever decline in the number of subscribers that they have, and so I'm sure that was a wake up call. Whether they're like, oh shoot, uh, we we weren't expecting all that to happen, and so because of that, yeah, they can't keep spending like crazy. Uh. And so I do think that we're gonna see the prices take up as these different companies are trying to make a profit

keep their shareholders happy. But at least you don't have to deal with commercials though, right, Like that's one of the that's probably one of the biggest perks of streaming, although even that might be coming to an end because commercials and streaming services are becoming more in vogue these days. It sounds like Netflix that they're going to adopt an ad supported model pretty soon. Hulu they've been doing this

for a while. Uh. And some of the different free services that we're going to mention later on, they are all built on the AD model. Uh. And that I mean. I mentioned that because it's not necessarily a bad thing. But you can't skip them like you can when you listen to podcasts. And so some folks hate commercials, other folks don't mind them. Personally, I am not a fan.

If I'm being held hostage, right, if I have the ability to quickly put up my phone, you know, hit forward four or six times depending on the show, I know I know how many times they hit it. I don't mind that. I don't mind using the ad supported version of Spotify. I'm not gonna pay the premium. I don't mind if the little ad pops up and I have to click off of the thing where they're trying to get me to upgrade to save you ten bucks a month. It's like, all right, yeah, that's a minor

inconvenience exactly. But when it comes to it, like the medium matters, I guess, is what I'm saying here. And recently we did use one of the free platforms to watch a movie and it was the worst because these ads. First of all, I wasn't used to it, and it's hard to step back from that once you've realized how good it can be. It just like ruined the whole flow of the movie because they weren't strategically placed or anything.

You're watching the scene and all of a sudden, just in the middle of it, right in the middle of it, and by the second one, I was wanting to pull my hair out. Uh. That is not something that I'm willing to give up. Is having commercials within Definitely not in movies with TV shows, that's that's fine, that's one thing, because I mean the old TV shows were created with

commercials in mind, Like they had specific breaks. A thirty minute TV show was like twenty two minutes minutes exactly, and they would end at certain scenes and you knew to expect that. You know, when you just slice up a movie when your jarred out of like this really emotional or hilarious. I don't know any scene like that. I'm not cool with that, Okay, I got you. I

feel that. I think maybe one of the best things about streaming commercialists is when it's kids stuff, because I feel like my kids one time we stayed at a hotel room and they were watching something on live TV on Nickelodeon or something like that, and I remember them just being ecstatic over all the commercials more than even than the content. Where have all these toys been my

entire life? And then they start begging for things. I'm like, oh no, we're gonna have to go back to streaming kid content and and we'll never get cable because that reason. So that that's probably the biggest reason doabley commercials. Like all of a sudden, my kid wants a slipping slide exactly exactly all these things that didn't they didn't even know existed. But yea, yea, it'll it'll mess your kid's

brains and they're gonna start begging for stuff. But the reality is, you know, we might be spending ten to twelve dollars a month for something that we're barely using. Right there, there's some people are still subscribed matt to streaming services or to you know, other subscriptions for that matter, that they're not even really taking advantage of. That's one thing that has to we have to point out, like maybe canceling it isn't even going to make a big dent.

It'll help your monthly budget, but it's not gonna make a big dent in your viewing habits or in what your life looks like. And so yeah, multiply that by the number of different platforms. Right tend to twelve bucks a month, but some of them are even more expensive than that, and you can find yourself in that Captain planet territory, that cable bill territory that is like terror zing your monthly budget. And so uh, it's actually it's

it's interesting at the beginning what you're talking. There's so much to talk about cutting the cord, and now it seems like, at least for some people's doing habits, cable might actually save the money over uh there there, especially if they're subscribed to one of the live TV style

services that are five dollars a month. But I think now is as good of a time as any to kind of reassess your your streaming needs in in the summer, because maybe you're, yeah, taking more trips, You're going to local pool more often, You're going on more hikes, and you're like, I have found myself not sitting in front

of the TV as much. I don't know, but yeah, we want to offer some solutions in this episode for how to think about the which streaming options you you choose to pay for and and how to lower your overall bill a little bit. Um. But but first we're actually gonna get a little philosophical about streaming and we'll do our best impression of Plato for you guys right after this break All right, we're back from the break Angel.

We're talking about why streaming sucks. But first we're gonna change directions and ask the question why do we stream? Let's go ahead and wax poetic. Let's get philosophical here for a second, because I think it's also important for us to ask ourselves why it is we even watched TV in the first place, instead of just picking the two or three streaming services you like the best in calling it a day. I think it's a good exercise to think about why we're so excited to pay for

streaming entertainment in the first place. And uh, you know, like one of the I think top reasons I think that's worth mentioning is because of fomo fear of missing out. Man. I think this is one reason that it seems many are addicted to streaming content because, for example, like if everyone at work was talking about Game of Thrones, is you know, like back in twenty nineteen, when it was just NonStop everywhere, you may have felt left out of

the conversation. You know, I didn't. I never watched it, and you didn't. You didn't have that sense of fomo back then. I mean I heard a lot of people talking about it. I knew it was popular, but it just well, there are a lot of people listening who who did feel that Because of that, they're like, maybe I should you know the Banisters? Who are they? Or what banisters or the lanisters banisters like a stair railing. The only thing I know from Game of Thrones is

winter is coming. And I don't even know what that means. I just see them, but you know it because it was such a part of our culture, right, And if that was you, there's a chance that you felt culturally irrelevant, maybe even at that point in time. But like we we share this because it takes this element of not caring to push past this. Like, dude, just this morning, you know, we had a lovely conversation about the hike

uh that we went on. You you talked about the pool that you all visited recently, Like we were then talking about what we're looking for most in our our new community here. We were talking about the things that matter in life, right, And obviously there can be times for those types of conversations and catching up on the show.

But the more you're talking about these real things that matter in life, you know, I think you're gonna find less of a need for your life to be consumed with the latest series or the latest O or the you know, the latest movie that might be out. Also to just with a volume of content, uh and diverging tastes out there with everybody. You can't be caught up

on everything anyway. And so what we're saying here is, don't worry about feeling, like I said, culturally irrelevant, and instead focus on the things that matter, focus on the just the deeper and truer conversations that spans all of the different streaming genres. Yeah. Yeah, And and we're not saying that you need to live some sort of like walden Pond existence where you build your own log cabin and you live on a lake. And I'm not even sure if that's what happened in walden Pond. I'm just

making a guess here. Uh, yeah, that's what he did. Yeah, So so I'm just like, it's not that you need to cut yourself off from anything modern. You know, you don't need to go live amongst the amish too to get away from this sort of nasty and nefarious disease that is streaming. Like, that's not that's not what we're trying to say. But what we're saying is, like some of the reasons that people stream is it's not necessarily because it's in their best interest or because they want

to watch TV for four hours a day. It is because they want to be caught up in the cultural zeygeist match. They want to know what's going on, and streaming television and movies are one of the top things people talk about and they don't want to be left out of the conduct exactly. And I think another another reason that people tend to stream a lot watch a lot of TV is for escape. And I think the sad reality is, yeah, we we use TV as a way to kind of forget about the cares of our

everyday life. We kind of hit the pause button on the negative things that are happening all around us, whether it's just kind of in the country as a whole, or in the world, or even just in our own personal lives. And you know, interestingly enough, TV is America's most popular leisure activity. When I read that, just to see a phrase that way was shocking and saddening. Um, it's like, again, like you know, you and I we like to watch a good TV show every now and again.

I'm not against stranger things or even paying for for streaming. Well, we'll get to like how to save money specifically on stream in a little bit. But that's just a sobering fact, right that the average American household is watching something like eight hours of TV day, and individual Americans eighteen and up or averaging more than four hours and twenty minutes

of TV watching. That's according to Nielsen. Cash's shocking, like so much time watching watching TV and and I guess it just makes me wonder, like, are we are watching to avoid facing reality? And I think for some people, for some people that's the case. So it's it's really it is worth taking a hard look at how much TV we're watching and assessing whether or not it's good for us, Like what are the motivations behind as my mom always called it, vegging out and um and just

just being on the couch too much in general. Yeah, And so instead of escaping by watching TV, I think the true call here is to engage in those things, right.

I think there's a way for us to see the news on TV or to you know, see the news that we're reading online and finding ways that we can engage at whatever capacity and at whatever level, whether it's local, community, state, nationally that you have the ability to whether it's you, uh, sticking your head in the sand and avoiding your financial situation.

Maybe that's the case for you and and you're thinking, you know what, instead of facing that, I'm just going to flip on the TV, you know, watch another episode. But I think there's a way for us to engage with these things and not to just escape or to even know why it is or what it is or trying to escape from, but then to sort of see it and to point it out and say, Okay, I'm not going to let my life look like that. Instead,

I'm going to engage and wonder that. Other surveys reflect the fact that we have fewer close friends than we used to as well, We're spending less time with our neighbors and friends, leaving us feeling more disconnected. And while watching TV it's easy, it's not ultimately as alfilling as

finding and building real community where you live. And so we would ask you to maybe even start documenting how much TV you're watching, uh and once you figure out that amounts basically we're trying to create a TV budget for you, and we're trying to get you to count

your your viewing minutes. But once you identify that, maybe can cut back by May and opt to spend more time cultivating an actual hobby or going for a bike ride, or you know, calling a friend, and we see all this realizing that we're probably sounding like your mom, but we're only highlighting this because we're recognizing the fact that not only will you be able to save money, but there's a good chance that you're gonna be happier because

of it as well. Yeah, and and even when you think about it, Matt, we're watching a lot of TV, and then we're having conversations with our friends about the TV we're watching, like it dominates so much of our lives in so many ways. And even just the conversation do you find yourself having with other people. If you watch less TV, they're more productive, they're more fulfilling because you're not just catching up literally on the thing you

spent three hours doing the night before. And so we've said that the reasons people watch TV are fomo are for escape. But then a third reason I think people watch TV is it's just purely for entertainment, and and that is it's the innocent reason to watch TV. So I do it because I enjoy it, because it's freaking entertaining. And they are right, like we are in this golden age where there there's a lot of good stuff to watch, and and so we are trying to we don't want

to get overly preachy. We don't want to say make it sound like, you know, we don't like watching awesome stuff, and and so yeah, I don't know. Some some TV shows are just truly artistic. For instance, J d Roth that we've found on the show before, he recently wrote about why he loves Stranger Things so much, and I just kind of found myself in total agreement. I'm like, I haven't really thought about it. I just thought of

it as just kind of entered an entertaining show. But the reality is, uh, it's got this nostalgia factor, right, it's got deep concepts. It is it is, and it's got concepts like friendship and loyalty at the heart of the show, which he appreciated, which I do too. Makes me think about breaking bad, Like why was I so attached to that show when it was on and you valued all the things that they were doing The LAS

show exactly. I think meth hampenamine is great for everyone. No, it's because like all of these like deeper aspects of humanity. Maybe the fact that that some of these people, these characters were flawed they were torn. They were they were good, they were but they were simultaneously good and bad. Like

they had a lot of distinct features. I mean, I felt like the human element of that show was raw and powerful, not to mention just kind of the New Mexico scenery that was was pretty pretty solid in there too. So it's artistic from like a cinematography standpoint as well. Sure, I mean, I think so there's many reasons that you can enjoy something right, whether it's because of just the artful storytelling, the narrative that someone is able to wee

you throughout a story. Maybe it's the drama involved within a story, or like it makes me think of Planet Earth that like the BBC series when it first came out, it was it was amazing, It was breathtaking. I remember why walking through the Best Buy and they had scenes from that playing on their ultra high def TVs and just having my mind blown watching these the first of

Nature's phenomenal. It was phenomenal, and so you know, or maybe it's like maybe like a nice twist at the end of your like a m Night Shamalan style, Like there are so many different reasons that we are drawn to entertainment, and every one of those reasons are valid, but sort of like what I was saying at the beginning, like these are sort of the quote unquote innocent reasons that were you know that we say that we like something and that's totally fine, but keep in mind some

of these less innocent reasons like FOMA or escape, where we're trying to ignore what's going on in our real life. That is the key thing that we're trying to to highlight into point out here that we want to make sure that we are all avoiding. But so that being said, you know, I feel like we've philosophized enough here, so let's talk about how to actually cut that streaming build

down h to size and in a practical way. Uh So, if you're a heavy streamer, if you're looking to cut your monthly costs, there are more good free options out there for you than ever before. So we figured we'd mentioned a few of those, and also don't worry because we will make sure to list all of the different resources up on our show notes for this episode just in case you're driving. But let's start with some of the free options out there that the that the library

offers and that is Hoopla and Canopy. Both of these library apps are great when it comes to being able to watch stuff for free. Personally, I prefer the different audio books, even some of the e books that they have available, but generally speaking, those are resources that we oftentimes forget about. But there are other options as well. Pluto, Uh, they give you some great live streaming options for free. You don't even have to create an account with them.

I was actually shocked at how many options that they had up there. I randomly checked in on that one map because we were kind of like preparing for this episode and uh, you know, caught five minutes of one of those old school Iron Chef episodes. Those things are classic, man, like what a good show. It's like, oh man, I remember when Richard Blade looked like that, and then I had to be Chef. I had to be like wait, no stop, Joel, like you know you got you got

sucked in. You don't need old school Iron Chef in your life, but to be Roku. They both have some very popular free streaming channels as well. They are also worth checking out. I think Crackle is another one. So there are a bunch If you're like, hey, I Matt and Joel, I you're wrong. I don't care how much how many hours I'm spending in front of the TV.

I just want to do it for less money. Well, that's what the services are offering, many of them AD supported, and it's one of those things where, Yeah, that was shocked at how much free content there is now, and I think that's again what's going to start eating away at the profitability of some of the ones that you pay a monthly fee for. And more and more people are are b are okay with watching ads, Matt, So

I know you and I were. That's not our preference, but there's times if they're not too intrusive, I don't mind. I would be fine with it if it was on a TV show like Iron Chef or something like that. But it's not gonna work when it comes with with a movie, right exactly. So, like if you're watching a Harry Potter with your kids, you're like, you don't want to be stopped for commercial breaks of like two minutes every fifteen or twenty minutes, and so I totally get that.

But but yeah, I think something like fifty eight percent of people UH surveys say they're now totally fine to watch uh, to stream content in exchange for watching ads. And so hopefully yeah, one of these one or two of these services are ones that you'll like as you kind of look into them. And of course, like Peacock has come around, they've got like a free tier that's

AD supported as well, so you can watch that. And you know, while streaming is pretty great, I would say, don't forget about the antiquated technology that still works like a charm that allows you to watch television for free. Antennas, right, that's one of those things that people forget about. Like I don't know, I'm a single friend who has an antenna attached to their TV and if I could fix that on their behalf, I would, and maybe I should

like and buy the antenna's for Christmas or whatever. But it just works great for getting a lot of your local channels and it's, um it's like streaming over the air before streaming actually existed. So and you can actually surprisingly get an amazing picture too when with your antenna. Well it's HD, right, I mean, so they're broadcasting in full HD compressed with anywhere exactly, so it's not digitized.

And when you say I mean, I think most people know what we're talking about when we see antenna, but we're not talking about the old school bunny ears. We're talking about the black, uh little square like piece of plastic. Yeah, yeah, that you tacked to the wall. That's how we do it. We just as long as you don't hit the I guess. If you don't hit the wires, I think it's fine. But we just use the thumb tack and literally just tack it to the wall behind the TV and it

does a great job and capturing those ABC and NBC signals. Yeah, I forget which one of them we don't get too well, but that's fine. One then you can like tarn it, I guess, or you can even get a more high powered antenna, or you can there's YouTube videos where you can make your own antenna and stick it in your attic like seriously for likeucks or something like that, and they're they're gonna really be able to catch a signal and they're even better and they'll reach you for then

you know part of what channels you're gonna get. It depends on where you live and the kind of antenna you have, but I think it's antenna web is a good website to kind of check and see what channels are available where you live, which ones you can get well. But yeah, antenna's are like fifteen bucks. They're cheap fixed and they allow you to get some of that TV, the local TV at least that you might want, without paying a dime. And it makes me think that just

one more free service. YouTube, of course, is one of those things that it's kind of different than a lot of the other ones we're talking about because it's user generated content. But there's so much good stuff on there now, and there's even educational stuff on there. Now. I'm not saying YouTube is mostly educational content, but some of the stuff that I consume on YouTube is like long form

interesting conversations or whatever. And so if you're into learning something while you're streaming, I think that's a much better use of it. And YouTube is actually one of the best places for that kind of content now. So I don't know, I think that's I think that's pretty cool. That's right. Most content on YouTube is free. You just have to watch like that five seconds of ads before you hit skip ads in the lower right hand corner.

But there is a way that you could pay a lot of money for the YouTube content that you consume. That's right, you guessed it. We're gonna talk about sports and the myriad ways that you can get your sports content. We will get to all of those different options right after this. Alright, we're back. We're talking about why streaming sucks, and it's mostly because it's parting you from your money and your time. Um, you know, more more than it should be, and so we want to help you come

at that in your life. We want you to sign up for some of those free services to spend less when you're streaming. We want you to also just spend less time streaming in general, find more productive things to do, and create more connections in your community. We think that's

a healthy approach. But man, let's talk about sports too, because when we're talking about streaming and cutting the streaming bill, one of the hardest sections of your streaming bill to lower is if you're a big sports fan, because the costs rack up quickly, and people who are die hard for their team, or their sport or all the sports have the most difficult time being able to reduce the costs of their monthly bill. And the it seems like live sports is kind of fracturing into a bunch of

these different streaming services. So like for some NFL games, now you're gonna have to have Amazon Prime in order to watch them. You know, ESPN still hosts a lot of important games for basically every sport, so it feels like you need to have ESPN as well, And and some of them are on regular cable ESPN others are on their streaming cousin, which is ESPN Plus. You know Apple, Apple just bought the rights to stream MLS games, Hulu has Live Sports to the list just goes on and on.

So it feels like if a person wants to watch live sports but it doesn't want to go bankrupt, um, at least for some of them, cable might be the best option. Uh, the antenna comes in handy, like we were just talking about for for lots of NFL games and ESPN Plus, it's it's not expensive, but it also doesn't stream everything that ESPN itself is broadcasting. So when when we're talking about the best streaming options for for sports, two of the best channels out there are food Boat

TV and YouTube TV. And so yeah, you're you're you're gonna pay a lot of money though in order to sign up for those, guys, YouTube tv is sixty a month, So you gotta really expensive, you gotta really like sports, you gotta that's gotta be a big part of your life in order to justify that. Uh, the great thing is if you're a Premier League soccer fan, all you gotta have is Peacock Premium and you can watch those

matches for five bucks a month. That's not bad. But really, when it comes down to it, because there are regional sports packages Matt that some of the baseball games are on your your local hometown team, and there aren't many places that offer those. You can't sign up for those directly at think direct tv is the only place where you can get those regional sports packages, so you need to look into their streaming option, which I think is

eighty five dollars a month. Um. Sling tv is another one worth looking at if you're a big sports fan. But really, those all of those live sports streaming services, you need to kind of compare and decide well, which which teams, which sports are most important to me, or which ones can I give up and kind of do a cost benefit analysis to make sure that you're not overpaying for sports that you're not able to watch as

much as you'd like. That's right. Yeah. One thing that's important to note is that there are a lot of different scammy sites out there purporting to offer free sports streaming, but they might be attempting to take your money or you know, or give your computer virus. Uh. It is best to stay away from those sites. Oftentimes, I feel like they're just praying on people who are desperate to

get the game on. They're like, dage, I wasn't counting on the desire that I have right now to watch this game, and you end up at the dark Web and you're like, I mean to go here. Watching live sports can be a tough thing for for price conscious streamers, and I do hope that there's going to be more innovation on this front in the near future. But one way to bring down those costs is to share your plan with someone else. And we're talking about family plans.

You don't even have to be in the same family necessarily, uh, in order to do it. That being said, Hulu and Netflix they appear to be cracking down on folks who are on the same plan who don't live in the same house. But Amazon Prime they're totally cool of sharing. Uh, they've got Amazon Household actually, Joel, you and I we actually use that to share the cost of Prime and we've been doing it for years now. The terms of service oftentimes can be ambiguous with some of these different

streaming companies. But looking to some of these different ways where you do have the ability to share the bill, if you can do that with another individual or with another family, that can dramatically lower the costs as well. Yeah, so you're gonna want to make sure that the streaming service you're signed up for is cool with that. Um,

But if it is, that's a great thing. Like I think YouTube TV, for instance, it's sixty five a month, but I think it supports up to six simultaneous streams, and so you might be able to share that with a friend down the street. That's a lot of people. Yeah, Or even if you just share it with one other family that's thirty two bucks a month, then it cuts it in half and it makes it a lot more reasonable to consider signing up for that service and then to be able to keep your pressure sports and uh.

One one other way to save money on streaming that Let's talk about some some other ways too. Because family plans are a good way, but but canceling some of your services is obviously another way to save money on those recurring streaming costs. And and in particular, if a show that you like, if you just got done watching it and there's nothing else that strikes your fancy, well guess what If you log into the every day, you're

going to find something to watch. But if you cancel it and you move on, then you're saving money and you're wasting less time, and and there's just no reason to be perpetually subscribed to the same service. So yeah, I don't know, sign up for HBO Max in order to catch up on the new season of Barry, which here's a great show, but uh, you know, then then drop it like it's hot once you've finished that season. Don't stick around hoping that something else comes in the

near future. And don't get to set a calendar reminder too in order to cancel, because that, um it helps you actually follow through instead of spending in perpetuity. But doing a little planning when it comes to your binging, it's gonna save your real money. And it's the same with those free or dis kind of trials. Use those to your advantage. If you're like, all right, can I race against the clock and watch all of this one

mini series in my free seven day window? Um, and then maybe you know what, I'll take the next week off and I won't watch any I won't watch any TV. But man, I made a nice money savvy move and um, spending zero dollars to watch that show that I wanted to see. Totally. Basically, we're asking you to be more selective in what it is that you're watching and when

you watch. But I will say it's I think it's been a little bit harder because we're talking about Stranger Things earlier, and Netflix is doing that little experiment with Stranger Things where they broke up the season uh into two halves where they had to span multiple months, so you can't get in there for that single month do all the benjing. Instead, they got you paying for it twice. And I guess what they're banking on is the fact that people would be a little more used to the

fact that they're paying it. Right, Like, one month, you pay for it, and it's it's kind of stands out like a sore thumb. But when there's two of them, I don't know, maybe there's the two charges that they look kind of comfortable, uh so you don't feel bad if there's a third charge. And then before you know it, it's been in an entire year, you've been paying for Netflix and you haven't watched a single thing. And then you're like, on there, the new spinoff of Stranger Things

isn't as good as I thought. It's a original series, and then you're like, that's when you finally cancel. That's when you get fed up. But another small thing that you can do is pay for your streaming services with the right credit card. That's the benefit that more the

credit card issuers are offering. Specifically, I'm thinking of the American Express Blue Cash Preferred Card, which is my favorite card to use at the grocery store because they give you six percent, but they also give you six percent back on streaming expenses. But that is one of our favorites, so we would recommend that you check that one out

for sure. And also, like, there's some different cell phone companies out there and they'll offer like a free Netflix, uh, offer pust some other stuff, but often your best bet is to go with a cheaper phone service provider and then pay for your own super streaming. That's not always going to be the case. We definitely recommend for you to do the math. But I guarantee that the Verizon plan that comes with free Disney's plus, that that is not going to save you money over the course of

a year. It's like, Yeah, I sign up for this hundred dollar a month cell phone plan, but guess what We'll throw in a free twelve dollar a month streaming service. And it's like, no, just go with the fifteen dollar uh cell phone plan and the twelve pay the twelve dollar streaming service for yourself if you want it, and you're still coming out incredibly ahead instead of going with

those packaged deals that usually aren't a deal. And Matt, let's talk about some streaming alternatives for a second, because let's say you find yourself saying, you know what, Matt and Joel, right, I am spending something like four hours a day watching TV. I'm doing it. I'm doing it too much. I have let it maybe overtake some of the areas of my life where I had bigger goals that I wanted to meet, whether it's financially or personally.

And you found yourself maybe becoming more Laxa daisical about those goals. Are are not even attempting some of them because there's just too much good stuff to watch? Well, um, we we would say that if you do find yourself paring back in order to save money and watch less in general, you want you're gonna want to have some go to activities to fill that time with, to incorporate into your life. And I think reading more books is one of those things that you ideally should be doing

more of. Like that would be a great thing. Uh, it's a it's a it's a timeless, beautiful thing to be reading a book, right. Yeah, Before we go any further, like I would venture to even say that, like, we don't have to give you a bunch of things that you could do if you were to eliminate TV from you, you know, more TV from your life. I would venture to say that these are the things that you will get to do when you are watching less TV. Yeah. I feel like oftentimes we know the different things that

we could be doing. It's just a matter of being reminded of the things that we're giving up because we're sitting there on the couch watching T Yes, yes exactly. And I think one of those like books. We we were like, I haven't had the time to read the books I want to do this year. Or I had to go to read twelve books this year and one a month and I read two or three. And you know what, if if we just curve back some of our our streaming, we'll be able to meet those girals,

We'll be able to read more of those books. And it's just true, like if you, if if anybody out there has ever read the book by Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death. His line of thought is that the medium is the message, and what he says is is basically that the quality of the information that you can get from watching TV has a lower ceiling. It's just it can't, by by definition, be as good because the

medium sucks. And so yeah, TV news is something that he takes issue within the book, and I think he's spot on on that. But you know, books, as a medium, they just offer a richness and a depth that is it's basically impossible to find when you're scrolling through TV

channels or streaming options. And Matta makes me think about my kids experience watching Harry Potter after reading it and the girls were so disappointed that some of those most important features in the book, some of the best parts, were left out of the movies. And just by definition, they can't include it all, right, there's just no possible way. The books are clearly richer, deeper, more fun and vibrant

than the movies. There's a gap there between what you see and what you've got to read, the imagination you've got out to bring to the table when you were when you were reading that book, and so books is a medium, are just superior in so many ways. And my kids found that out, and I hope that they remember that because they still do love to watch TV, but I'd love I want to see them reading more

and more books and uh and and watching less TV. Totally, yeah, you know, I mean, aside from books being a better version of what you could watch on the screen, Like, think about the different opportunities that you're missing out on when it comes to just bettering bettering yourself in general, Like how often have you said that you're just too busy for a leisurely walk in the afternoon, a walk that you know would be good for your your stress

levels for you're like how too busy the works too much, Like I can't I can't afford to get away for fifteen minutes exactly. But you are definitely caught up on on all of the latest shows on each of the streaming services. Uh. And so your time might be filled up, but that doesn't mean that you spent it well or that you spent it in a way that truly feeds

your soul. So, whether that's just walking in nature, are going for a bike ride, uh, talking with a friend, right, catching up, these are all far more humanizing active VIDs. But you could even attempt something even grander, maybe even actually writing a book of your own or like, maybe that's too lofty, right, maybe that's just you going to

the climbing gym, whatever it is. The options are endless. Uh. You just need the time to do the thing, and for most folks, the place to most easily grab that time is going to be from the time that you spend watching TV. Yeah, agreed, just because there's such a

huge chunk of time there. And Matt, with the way people have been able to kind of so many people in kind of the new work environment, working from home, more more hybrid, more flexible, flexible work options, you can even go for a two hour chunk in the afternoon. Lots of people could away from their work and do something awesome during the best parts of the day and save some of your work for that evening if you if you wanted to, instead of then turning on the TV.

It's one of those things where a lot of us have more flexibility than we like to assume, and because of that, we end up kind of falling into ruts. And one of those ruts for a lot of folks is watching too much TV and putting on the back burner or just putting off all together more fun, more invigorating activities that are good from like that personal development standpoint totally and and really when it comes down to

what we're choosing to watch. Also, Matt, I think I think it's so easy to get a recommendation from someone at the water cooler, or to see a review, let's say, in the New York Times, or see somebody tweet about

a show that they're catching up on. But I think sometimes part of the reason we watch too much television is because everybody's telling us to watch something, and we decided to take all the recommendations uh that maybe we haven't curated our selection enough and it just there's this actual there's this app called just Watch, and I think it's pretty cool. You can go to the website or

download the app. And I think for our listeners out there who are like man, I just find myself constantly moving on to the next thing that the streaming service recommends, or a friend, uh, going with some sort of app that has a better algorithm that curates more effectively what you're into, might actually prevent you from watching garbage TV shows or watching something that isn't actually up your alley, and and so that you're spending the time that you

are watching TV on things that are actually awesome and enjoyable, because because we really are living in an age where there are a lot of great TV shows and so you don't want to waste your time on some of that mad content because there's a lot of that stuff out there too. Yeah. I mean again, basically, we I mean, if you are going to go with streaming services, like we just want you to make sure that you're directing your dollars towards the services that are going to bring

you the most bang for your buck. Um. But I mean we've kind of been making an argument though for you to spend less time watching streaming watching TV. And you know, like I say this because I hope that this resonates with you a little bit more deeply today maybe than it did like a couple of years ago. I think if if we were releasing this episode spring of it's sort of like a headwind, right because we a lot of folks were afraid to go out, Like what am I going to do with my time? Exactly?

I can't go to the bar, I can't go see my parents exactly. Yeah, And so because of that, we we did spend a lot of time watching TV. But now that I think that the pandemic is over and a lot of folks are trying to move on with what they feel like is their normal life, they're kind of hopefully they're looking back and saying, you know what, I'm done with that, Like like I think back to the pandemic and how like I swear like maybe every

other night KIT never watching like a Marvel movie. And that's what we did at that point in time because we had a lot of time on our hands and like we weren't going out. And maybe that was fine for them, but it's not fine for today. Like I'm I'm done with that, not just because I don't want to watch any more Marvel movies. Uh. They also come out with one a week well, and they released schedule

on Marvel. It's ridiculous. They have gone downhill. I feel like as well, the quality has to have gone town with with just the sheer number of TV shows and movies are releasing from the Marvel universe exactly. But aside from that, I just don't want my life to to be that consumed with television because I am wanting my life to look more quote unquote normal, or at least

what I'm calling normal today. Uh. And so hopefully this resonates with you and you feel that this is true, like at a deeper level, and that this isn't something that we're having to convince you of that you're thinking, you know what, like this is the exact kind of kick in the pants that I needed to go ahead and ancel some of those subscriptions, to maybe sit down and like lisp out, to write out some priorities of the things that you would rather spend your time doing, uh,

and to proactively head yourself off at the past. That way, you don't come home after a long, hard day at work, uh, and where your will is weak and you just want to park it and watch another episode of Stranger Things. Although maybe maybe Stranger Things for us is like the Crafty your equivalent. Maybe like for us, that's the one

show that I will definitely watch at some point soon. Yeah, and and so I think, yeah, we want you to limit your your TV intakes so that you can do more of what matters, like, do more of the things that are good for your mind, your body, and your soul. And also it is good for your wallet, right because you're gonna be spending less money on some of those

streaming services too. So hopefully that's your takeaway from this episode. Uh. You know, as I was doing it, Matt, like, I'm like, I don't watch anywhere near what the average American watches. But it's still made me like, then the Nilsen stats are still mind blowing, still blowing. Yeah, that number of

hours is being watched in the American household. Yes, but still and it makes me realize that I just want to find ways to you know, curb my consumption even more so that I can, especially now that as we're like you want to like, I'll set the curve a

little bit. Yeah, And just as like we're kind of moving into a new neighborhood, I'm like, I want to spend even more time out there with people developed making friendships, exploring my neighborhood, like exploring the mountain that's close by where we live, and and and working out with a friend like stuff like that. Like those are the kind of things I want to be doing more of. And I feel like the more and more time I dedicate

towards streaming, the less options I have for that other stuff. So, uh, yeah, it's a It's a direct trade off when it comes to your time and how you're spending it. I want to read more books too, Like, I just want to get better about that. So I think cutting more streaming from my life is really the only way to make that happen. Totally agree, man, All right, let's go ahead and quickly mentioned the beer that you and I enjoyed during this episode. This was a Benevolence, which is a

vienna style logger by Flying Machine. Uh. These guys are out of North Carolina. Have we had one of their beers before? Flying Shame? I think so? I think we had one. Yeah, as well, I feel it kind of had like the mosaic colorful looking label, didn't it. Maybe, Yeah, this one looks like it's through a kaleidoscope right laid or it's like a yeah part roar shock test. Yeah, like what do you see, Joel, but benevolence. This was

when we poured it. Like it's called a Vienna style lagger, and I don't know if that means that it's kind of a darker or like reddish color lagger, but in my mind it's totally poured like really dark and more amber. Yeah, yeah, more amber and kind of had some sweeter notes, yes, say sweeter logger. Yeah. I thought it was interesting. It

almost had like some notes of like a brown ale. Right. Um, it's because it had a little bit more sweetness and it was a little darker, but it was also kind of that classic logger profile at the same time, it was like somewhere in between. So I thought this was really interesting one. And I don't know that I've had

something that tastes like this any any time in recent memory. Yeah, I definitely had a lot more flavor, like more I don't know, like barley or rice or whatever it is that you you know that you're supposed to pull out of a beer like this, but it was very enjoyable and I'm glad that you and I got to share one of these today, But that is going to be it's We will make sure to link to some of the different resources that we mentioned during today's episode up

on the website at how to money dot com. We'll link to some of the all the different free options will link to us, like the c nets. You mentioned a c net story where they compare some of those different HD antennas. We'll link to all of that up at how the money dot com. And we'll link to Matt's top twenty list of shows to watch on Netflix right now. I'm just kidding. That would defeat the purpose

exactly everything we've talked about. But we hope you have a great rest of your evening, reading a book tonight and sent streaming and Matt, that's gonna do it for this episode. Until next time, best Friends Out and best Friends Out.