Good-bye Netflix, Hello Redbox

Right out of college I lived with two girlfriends in an old (we’re talking late 1800’s) D.C. row house. It was in a great location so we overlooked little things like the lack of air conditioning. Despite the lack of amenities and how little we paid in comparison to our friends we were all young and broke.

One of my roommates proposed Netflix as an alternative to cable. We each paid something like $6 for what worked out to 10-15 discs a month. Three years later I still have the account and pay $9.68 a month. I average about 3 discs a month and occasionally take advantage of their watch instantly online feature.

I love the service but the more I think about it the more I realize it’s an unnecessary expense. After a little math I realize that a putting that money into a savings account making 3%-3.5% interest would mean holding onto $124-128 a year. Since I’m not quite ready to cut the cord I’ll put my account on hold at the end of the month. If I did it today I’d loose most of the money they charged me a few days ago.

A tip let me know that you can put accounts on hold for up to 90 days. During that time I’ll try RedBox. I can’t remember the lovely blogger who tipped me off to their free rentals but thank you. I’ll see how often they send me free codes and consider signing up for the SMS feed or getting codes online.

After a few month’s we’ll reevaluate.