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.
Hi Ken,
I prefer to pay a once off fee rather than an annual subscription that I no longer have use for but then forget to cancel (Evernote springs to mind).
If you ever decide to write that novel I highly recommend Scrivener, definitely worth paying for and not at all expensive. Great tech support too on the one occasion I needed it. A 30-day free trial is 30 days of use not 30 days from start date and I certainly don’t plan to go back to a regular word processing package
Check it out at https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview
Sandra
Hi Sandra, great to hear from you. I used to use Evernote, but not so much anymore. I did actually buy Scrivener but never got around to using it, thanks for reminding me. I’ll dig it out and play around with it again.