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Here's a fun exercise I like to do every 18 months or so, when I’m in a good mood and want to enrage myself make sure I’m not overpaying for television.

I comb through my bank statements, identify, and add up the costs of all my monthly streaming subscriptions. And, well, yeah, let’s just say I should have repeated this exercise much, much sooner, because, OMG, behold:

Nearly $1,600 a year for television. Over $1,600 a year actually as this chart doesn’t include a phantom subscription to MGM+ that I accidentally spent $6.99 on for a few months after forgetting to cancel the free trial.

You guys, I almost don’t want to talk about this.

When streaming first became a thing circa 2008, Netflix’s subscription, which still included DVD rentals, cost $8.99 a month, Amazon Prime cost $79 a year, and Hulu was free.

These services weren’t really an alternative to cable, but they were cheap enough to encourage subscriptions — and create a certain amount of stickiness. Who cares about a $1 increase here and there when you’re waiting on another season of Orange is the New Black?

Eventually, you could more readily cut the cord, depending on your viewing preferences. We haven’t had cable since 2016, but, well, you can see the results. You end up with close to 10 monthly subscriptions in need of monitoring, and — as prices continually creep up and the number of services somehow simultaneously multiplies and merges — the value of cordless viewing has changed.

We could talk about the quality of Netflix’s current viewing suite, but, really, you’ve got to look no further than the fact that you now have to pay Amazon close to $40 a year to simply not watch ads (and yet still somehow wind up watching ads, anyway? 🤔).

I went into this issue thinking I was for sure going to say: Yes, we spend way too much of streaming, but, no, we’d never go back to cable, because I like watching old episodes of Project Runway and, besides, with cable, there’s never anything on. And yet.

I did get quotes from Verizon Fios so I could make a more informed comparison, and, NGL, its offer was not bad: $129.99 per month, assuming we bundle with our Internet, a price that, you’ll note, is (slightly) less than our current streaming bill and includes a discounted 12-months of Disney+, Hulu, & ESPN, and Netflix and HBO Max.

It also offers a free year of NFL Sunday Ticket, which could come in handy, given my father currently pays for it to watch out-of-market Kansas City Chiefs games. (Remind me to complain about NFL Sunday Ticket in another issue.) And, though not pictured here, we could qualify for a $200 rebate gift card after maintaining service for 60 days.

I’m not inclined to take cable provider quotes at face value, so I need to do some digging (and talk to Teddy, who has a personal vendetta against commercials) before taking Verizon up on its offer. But, in the interim, I’ve made adjustments to our current subscription suite. Behold:

Not perfect, but much better, given it knocks off $760 a year. Some tips, largely based off my personal missteps, for anyone going through a similar streaming battle:

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I covered Aetna CVS Health pulling out of the 2026 Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces for Investopedia, so I knew this letter was coming — and, TBF to Aetna, I guess, I’m about 75% sure this wasn’t the first one we got. (I vaguely remember Teddy informing me about this development over the summer.)

But, if you’ve been eyeing all the scary health insurance headlines lately and are worried about getting dropped by your provider between now and the end of the year, be sure to open their mail.

The ACA put parameters around how and when a health insurer can drop you. For instance, they can’t cancel your insurance simply because you used it or because your health changed in a given year.

But they do have the right to uniformly discontinue products or non-renew policies, albeit with written notice, usually between 90 and 180 days of cancellation. And that written notice must provide some explanation of what you can or have to do next.

FWIW, these rules apply when you lose coverage due to a job loss, too; the window is just shorter (30 days), and the cancellation notice itself tends to come as less of a surprise.

Loss of health insurance, in general, triggers a special enrollment period, so you aren’t left upriver if an insurer drops you off-cycle, which essentially follows the calendar year.

In our case, as the letter suggests, we’ll need to pick a new plan on New Jersey’s ACA marketplace during open enrollment — something we were planning to do anyway, because the CVS Aetna plan, candidly, costs an arm and a leg. (Not that I’m expecting our new options to be all that much cheaper, but, hey, here’s hoping.)

If you get a similar letter:

Nowadays, most financial takes are boilerplate. These aren't.

And, finally, today, in what are we even doing here anymore?

We’re living in strange times, my friends, where a pack of toilet paper can set you back close to $30 and yet, somehow, there’s still a market for a $120 box of Chanel eye patches (which comes with 10 strips a pop).

Or, I dunno, maybe there isn’t really a market for this? Maybe this is one of those things where your entire business (or, in this case, product line) is propped up by one big buyer who goes by the name of Mim Mardashian or Bailey Hieber or something. And yet.

Either way, I’ll just keep my dark eye circles, even though my new glasses do sort of magnify them and I have dry patches along my eye sockets and … Oh no.

Got questions, comments, receipts, tips, thirst traps, etc. you’d like to share? Send them to [email protected].

_{This article is for educational purposes only. We don’t recommend or advise individuals to buy, not buy, sell, or not sell particular investments or other assets, as everyone’s circumstances are different. Also, it’s your money and ultimately up to you to decide the best use for it.}