Looking to have some fun without burning a hole in your wallet? Look no further. Here are some great ways you can save money on entertainment. What’s your favorite?
Average Entertainment Spending
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2010, the average American consumer unit spent $2,504 on “entertainment.” If you include “food away from home” as entertainment (like we do in our household), that adds another $2,505 of spending. Altogether, the average American consumer unit spent $5,009 on what we consider to be “entertainment.”
You might be wondering what what a “consumer unit” is. The Bureau of Labor Statistics describes it as “families, single persons living alone or sharing a household with others but who are financially independent, or two or more persons living together who share expenses.”
Without getting into our financial details, I can tell you that our family entertainment budget is significantly lower than the average American household. How about yours?
How You Can Save Money on Entertainment
You too can save a lot of money on entertainment. Here are a few ways we save money on entertainment at our house.
1. Netflix
Netflix has been a huge way we’ve saved money on entertainment. With Netflix, you can instantly watch unlimited movies and TV episodes streaming over the Internet to your TV via a PS3, Xbox 306, Wii, Apple TV, or any other Netflix-enabled device.
We’ve had Netflix off and on for some time now, and have found it to be a nice alternative to expensive cable packages.
2. Redbox
Redbox is another great way to save money on movie rentals. With prices well below $2 per movie per night, it beats paying $4 or more at a walk-in video rental store.
There are also great coupon codes you can find for Redbox movies online. Simply do a Google search for “Redbox codes” and you’ll find a few free promos. We’ve also found free Redbox movies come with other purchases, such as Totino’s pizza for a limited time.
3. PerkStreet Financial
PerkStreet’s Cash Back Debit MasterCard allows you to spend responsibly (without going into credit card debt) and get rewarded at the same time.
How so you ask? It’s easy. Whenever you use your card you’ll get 1% cash back on your purchases. There are also other ways to make as high as 5% cash back! Then you can use your cash back at popular restaurants and stores such as:
- Starbucks
- The Olive Garden
- Applebee’s
- The iTunes Store
- Amazon.com
- and many more!
Trust me, you can save a lot of money on entertainment this way. We save over $300 per year on entertainment by using PerkStreet’s card. If you’re not sure about it, check out a full-length review of PerkStreet.
4. The Good Old Fashioned Envelope System
The envelope budgeting system can save you a great deal of money when used properly. If you’ve found that you’re spending like the average American household and want to do better, try putting cash into an envelope labeled “Entertainment.”
When you spend cash, you’ll feel the pain as you hand over money to the cashier. Sliding a card is sometimes too easy, and keeping cash in an envelope is a nice visual reminder of exactly how much you have that you can spend.
5. No Cost Entertainment (Did Someone Say FREE?!?!)
Yes, you can have a good time for free – spending money is not required! Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Take a walk through the park.
- Pull out some old board games and play a round (I suggest Monopoly).
- Attend a community art show.
- Attend a high school play.
There are many more free entertainment options out there, you just have to be creative and know where to look! Before you know it, you’ll be spending less on entertainment than the average household.
How do you save money on entertainment? Leave a comment below!
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
My wife and I canceled our cable and simply used netflix as a replacement for it early last year. It is great because we are not limited by what time a show comes on, or commercials. I highly recommend doing this because you will save a ton! Great post as usual John.
I have a blog dedicated to cheap and family friendly activities in the Twin Cities of Minnesota. I update it each week and people can choose between lists of free, $5 or less, or more than $5 activities.
There have got to be more things to do out there than just the expensive things!
Thanks for your post. We love netflix, too!
Gianna, That is a really cool idea for a blog! I’m interested in reading more and sharing with my Milwaukee area friends.
Great article John! Thanks for the tips. One thing that we like to do to save money is check out movies from the local library. It’s perfect for the kids and they love the library so it turns into a family event! Plus, they never know that we “trying” to save money and it brings absolute joy because we tell them to go wild and pick whatever they want. They could NEVER do that at a movie store! Thanks again for the great thoughts.
The public library lends movies for free! They usually have a large and updated selection and you can request movies via other libraries.
One thing that is really helping my wife and I is to have a budget category specifically for eating out. We love to eat out for many reasons, but this category quickly helped us realize we were spending too much money on “quick” meals.
We’ve recently cut our cable and digital phone service; knocking our bill down from $185/mo to about $55 (just for standard cable internet). I spent some money and got streaming boxes for our rooms with TV and we have Netflix and Hulu. I also bought a Mohu Leaf antenna and a usb tv tuner and use windows media center to stream live tv to our two xbox 360′s (still fleshing that out).
we replaced our digital phone line with Ooma and now only pay taxes and fees (about $4.50/mo for us).
we have all this technology… why not use it?
What I spent will be paid off shortly with all the money I’m saving.
A word of caution with Netflix – if you are on a limited internet package, be wary of the quality of movie you are watching and how many you are watching throughout the months.
They have three options for the quality settings:
Good quality (up to 0.3 GB per hour)
Better quality (up to 0.7 GB per hour)
Best quality (up to 1 GB per hour, or up to 2.3 GB per hour for HD)
For newer movies, ask around and borrow them from friends. I have a group of friends, about 14 of us, that take turns buying new blurays and share them out to each other. You get to watch the movie only need to buy one every few months. Just make sure you are a good friend and return the movie on time and in the same shape you borrowed it in
Not sure if you would consider this entertainment, but I bought an acoustic guitar for $65. There is a guy a youtube who is a good teacher. It’s called worship in 10 days. I figure if I play the guitar for at least 5 years thats only $13 a year. Sure beats PS3.
Hm, my husband and I spent $732 on entertainment and $824 on eating out last year (assuming internet does not count as entertainment). We basically just prioritized two season tickets for local entertainment and don’t do much else that costs money. We have friends over a lot for game nights and sports-watching and such.
Woot woot! Netflix! Movies are so expensive these days, my wife and I just wait for movies to come out on netflix. It’s perfect!
Great tips! I do still pay for basic cable because it is bundled with the Internet and only costs $5 more than if I paid for the Internet alone, but we have almost completely stopped going out to eat. I thought I would have restaurant withdrawl, but I really don’t miss it!
For what it costs to go out and eat, we can buy meat and vegetables to smoke or grill, and have a small party with friends. Much more fun if you ask me.
These are good tips. The smaller movie chains in my area often have daily deals for half off movie tickets. I usually buy them once in a while or you can look for fandango coupons/gift cards on eBay. I like going to the movies once in a while!
It’s crazy how much money people spend for entertainment. I really liked your idea but for the more spontaneous people, Groupon is a great tool to save money on entertainment that you do not do on a regular basis.
These are great ideas. We have been WC (without cable) for over 2 years now, thanks to Netflix! Rough math shows me that we have saved over a thousand dollars on our cable bill and quite a bit on movie rentals. I don’t know if I will ever get cable again, even when we can afford it!