The Streaming Subscription Trick That Can Cut Your Monthly Bills In Half

Streaming services are a dime a dozen these days, and it feels like every time you turn around, there's a new one popping up or a merger happening. While you still have the big ones like Disney Plus and Netflix, tons of other companies are jumping on the bandwagon to create their own applications and their own streaming subscriptions as well. This forces users to either subscribe to those new services to keep up with their favorite shows, or miss out on new episodes entirely.

While streaming used to be a good option to turn to for those wanting to cut the cord and get away from cable, keeping up with all of your favorite TV shows services has become a lot more expensive. However, there is one smart trick or habit that you can get into the rhythm of that allows you to not only take advantage of the streaming services you love, but also to save money in the process: subscription hopping. Of course, this isn't a new phenomenon, as the notion of "subscription hopping" has been circling online since at least 2019.

While useful, unfortunately, this process isn't something you can just set and forget. Instead, it will take a little work, and you'll probably want to set some reminders — depending on how forgetful you are. If you can get into the habit, though, it can help you stay organized and save some money while still keeping up with all your favorite shows.

The idea behind subscription hopping is to alternate between your favorite streaming services from month to month. This means only subscribing to a service when it has a show or movie that you want to watch. Basically, if you aren't actively using Netflix, then you should cancel that subscription and use that money toward a service that has the content you want. Additionally, if you're looking for something to watch and you find out that there's a new show on Netflix or Disney Plus, then you can hop back to that subscription when you're ready to binge that particular show.

Not sure if a show is ready to binge? There are even websites that can help you see what shows are bingeable and how long it will take you to binge them. That's an important notion to take into account, too, especially as a lot of shows are being released on a weekly format now, even across streaming services.

Many feel that companies use this as a way to try to get subscribers to stick around longer, with some streamers even separating season releases into multiple parts across two months. While you can watch shows from week to week, especially if you spend a lot of time online and want to avoid spoilers, waiting until you can binge the entire season and subscription hopping can be a great way to watch what you love without breaking the bank.

The biggest caveat with this entire idea is that it takes some planning, as well as limitting yourself to not signing up for multiple streaming services just to get to the content faster. The planning stage comes into effect with deciding what shows you want to watch and when you want to watch them. So you need to figure out what shows are coming out on what services that you want to pay for, and then decide how many services you want to limit yourself to each month — some people limit themselves to one, while others might be okay with two or more subscriptions each month.

This can be a good way to determine what shows you want to watch sooner, and which subscriptions you're okay paying for. One easy way to handle this part of the process is to take a look at what's coming out in the next few months and then determine which services you want to grab. Keeping up with all the new shows dropping can be difficult.

Thankfully, it can also be useful to look at some of the easiest mini-series to binge on Apple TV and other services, as that can help you decide how much you can get out of a month's subscription. Websites like TVMaze and even YouTube can help you filter through trailers, and there are plenty of creators and bloggers out there talking about the shows they're excited to see as well.