From gym and cinema memberships, and even a newspaper subscription, many businesses rely on payments made on a recurring basis, but how can you tell if they offer value for money or stealthily drain your bank account?
For the business, a subscription model can improve cash flow on a monthly or annual basis, it’s a chance to connect with their customers regularly, and build brand loyalty.
After all, if you sign up for a gym in the Mallow Rd area, you’re unlikely to want to also pay for and frequent another gym in Maryborough.
For consumers, signing up for a subscription can save money. Take a movie pass for example. Most cinema chains in Ireland charge €14.99-€20 per person per month which allows the passholder to visit the cinema frequently during a calendar month.
Considering the cost of a cinema ticket begins at €7 per adult, a passholder that visits more than three times a month will save money compared to buying tickets each time.
That said, several cinema chains charge a monthly subscription fee that is mired in additional charges for booking a new release and reserving seats. The seats available without a fee tend to be the cheap front-of-house seats and make for an uncomfortable watching experience.
It’s a Ryanair-style model of making cross-selling that is designed to bring in more revenue for the businesses but also increases the overall cost of a subscription for the consumer. Ultimately, a movie fan who likes to sit at the back of the cinema may not save money on a monthly membership due to the additional charges.
Dropping in and out of memberships or subscriptions can save you money. Where a TV streaming service launches a new series, wait until all the episodes have been published before signing up. If you can binge on the series within a month, lapse the subscription again until you see something else that you like.
There are plenty of free TV services available, even digitally, and these include the much-maligned RTÉ player, Channel 4 (yes it’s free and available in Ireland), Virgin Media Player, and you can also rent movies and listen to music for free thanks to a library card.
Considering the big screen experience can often be coupled with popcorn and drinks, that monthly subscription could be costing you more than you think. If you enjoy new movie releases but not the high cost, consider renting that film online and enjoying some homemade popcorn, a comfy sofa to enjoy the movie from, sharing the movie with your family, and the ability to press pause if you need to.
Renting a recent release from Sky Cinema, for example, costs €15.99. I’d easily spend four times that cost if I took my family of four to the cinema. This represents a significant saving on my part.
There’s one annual subscription I pay without hesitation. Every January my allotment fees fall due, costing €210 per year for 200sq m of land that I rent from my local authority. To me, this fee is an absolute bargain considering the hours of pure enjoyment and the food I grow in ‘my happy place’. My plot is just over a mile away from my house, but I previously rented an allotment four miles away and I didn’t frequent it as much.
When choosing an in-person subscription factor in your time and distance before signing up. A yoga class membership, for example, might sound amazing but if you live 20 minutes’ drive away it will require more effort and cost fuel to take part regularly.
Look for a similar class closer to home to save money overall and increase your likelihood of getting the benefit from the subscription. That cinema membership may be well worth the money during the summer when the big screen is a 30-minute stroll, but in winter that 30-minute stroll could become a slog in bad weather.
You won’t be surprised to learn that I have several online newspaper subscriptions. If I did buy the physical papers, I’d not only be filling my recycling bin with quite the weight every week, but I’d also be spending more than my food budget. Instead, I sign up for digital subscriptions and yes, I absolutely read them all daily, although I confess that I may skip over the sports pages a little.
Those who pay for a subscription, but don’t use it, are the subscribers who benefit a business most. This is fantastic for the company, but not so good for subscribers’ bank accounts. I can guarantee you that this money could be put to good use elsewhere.
When signing up for a service, consider using a bank card or account that tracks your subscription costs. This makes it simple to see what your monthly charges are, plus it’s easier to make sure that your membership has been cancelled both by your payment provider, and the service you originally signed up to. I find both PayPal and Revolut excellent in this regard, and I particularly like the pop-up reminders that a monthly payment is due. Being more subscription savvy will save you money.
