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So let me know if you can relate to this. I guess it was about five years ago, I started watching a new TV show
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and slowly but surely, my friends got into it too. For us, it became the closest thing to appointment TV
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And when we couldn't watch it together, we'd just text each other about what was going on with the show
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And this show was one of the reasons why I signed up for a live TV streaming service
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Back then, services like YouTube TV, Hulu Live, and Sling TV, they were about half the price that they charge today
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YouTube TV launched at $35 a month, and at the time, I thought that was a pretty fair price
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Because I was not just subscribing for that one show, there's also sports, news, and locals. I watched it all
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But over time, as the cost of YouTube TV and the other live TV services shot up, something began to change
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The show I watched with my friends, it wasn't canceled, but we canceled our weekly appointment
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So what happened? The show we watch is now available next day on a much more affordable on-demand streaming service
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like many broadcast and cable TV shows now are. And because of this, a couple of my friends no longer see the value in a live TV service, so they canceled
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And you can understand why. YouTube TV increased its starting price to more than $70
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That was in March 2023, more than double the price it launched at in 2017
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Compare that to some of the on-demand streaming options, they're less than $15 a month
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All of us still watch the show, and we talk about it with each other. We are just not tied to the live TV schedule
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Our new habit is to watch TV on our terms. No more appointment TV
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And that's meant our text messages have changed too. Instead of starting with, hey, are you watching? Someone will ask, did you catch the latest episode yet
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Dropping live TV and switching to more of those on-demand services is an easy way to cut your TV bill in half, maybe more
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but it's just not going to work for everybody. If you watch a lot of live sports and cable news, you may be stuck with a bundle, at least for now
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In that case, you may be able to save money by limiting additional on-demand services that you get
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And since you can cancel a live TV service really at any time, you don't have to keep one all 12 months out of the year
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Every month that you drop live TV, it's going to put $70 or more back in your pocket
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I'm Michael, and I've been helping people save money for more than a decade
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Join me at michaelsaves.com, and thanks for watching today
