Welcome to what I hope will become a regular new feature on kenmccarthy.ie.  Things I Pay For will introduce a web service or product that I have actually committed to by paying for either on a one-off or ongoing basis, in some cases, I avail of these services through family subscriptions and in others, I pay using my mobile credit. Some I get through work and while most are paid monthly I do have a few annual subscriptions too.  This first post is about taking stock at the start of 2021 of the things I do currently pay for, from next week on I will start to try and explain in a bit more detail, what the service is and why I think it is worth paying for.

The list as it stands right now (02/01/21) is as follows:

Monthly Subscriptions

Tidal
Music

Amazon Prime
Music & Video, Free Amazon Delivery

Netflix
Video

Plex
Media Server

The Irish Times
News

750 Words
Journal Website

IFTTT
Web Automation

Last.fm
Music

Exist
Web Analytics

Radio Tunes paid using mobile credit
Music

The Times paid using mobile credit
News

Medium paid using mobile credit
News

Annual Subscriptions

Ancestry
Genealogy

Google One
Online Storage

Microsoft Office 365 Family
Online Storage, Office Applications

Family Subscriptions

Spotify included in a family subscription
Music

YouTube Premium included in a family subscription
Music & Video

Disney+ included in a family subscription
Video

Work Subscriptions

Mailjet
Newsletter Software

Canva
Graphic Design Software

Zoom
Video Conferencing

Biteable
Video Creation

Screencast-O-Matic
Video Creation

I think that about covers it but I have not included web hosting and domain registration that I also pay for (I might write a separate post on that at some stage).  Twenty three subscriptions in total and some are relatively new while others I have had for some time, the newest on the list is the Ancestry subscription as I only started that at the end of December.  The oldest is either Netflix or 750 Words.

When I write it all down it seems a lot and there are many other free services that I use that are not on this list but some do have premium versions so I may subscribe at some point in time in the future.  The monthly cost of all these services rounds up to €75 but with the use of phone credit for the three highlighted above it has a net monthly cost of €58 which works out at less than €2 a day.  The three I pay annually come to about €150 in total or another 40c to bring my daily total to €2.50, I doubt that I would get a decent cup of coffee for the same price.

What I do get is the full use of the premium services and subscriptions and in the case of a number of the services I support the knowledge that I am helping to make the web a slightly better and more useful place.  I could spend a little bit less if I really wanted to and there are a number of services that are duplicated on the list, do I really need three (or it is four) music streaming services?  Do I even use them all?

I would be really interested to hear about the things that you think are worth paying for, maybe there are treasures out there that I haven’t discovered just yet and do feel free to ask about anything on my list that piques your interest.