As part of my reflection on the previous year I wanted to catalog or inventory how much I spent on entertainment. I meant to do this at the beginning of 2017 for 2016 but then I got lazy and procrastinated until it seemed like I had missed the window. I’m only including entertainment that required the base amount of interactivity so activities such as travel, scuba diving, rock concerts and other experiential events.
Movies
I actually had a goal to attend a movie at least once a week throughout the year. I only missed one week but I still saw 52 movies at the movie theaters. I typically saw movies at a discounted rate, around $6, but I probably had enough regular priced, free or premium tickets that I would guess that my average ticket price is probably around $10. That means that my total for just attending first run movies was around $520. At the end of this I will provide the list of movies that I saw.
Monthly services
Well over a year ago I cut the cable cord and just get most of my entertainment via the Internet. And of course this is partially consumed of monthly subscribed services such as Netflix. In fact Netflix is the first service that I subscribe to. I have the second tier of their streaming service (allows for HD streams) as well as their two DVD at a time service. I do this later part as there are many movies that Netflix has DVDs for but don’t have streaming. It’s $10.99 for streaming and $11.99 for disc delivery every month. Add on another $1.69 in tax and multiply by 12 months and Netflix cost me $284.04.
Another service that I use for multiple things is Amazon Prime. I have watched many television shows and movies through this service for a total of $100.88 a year. Additionally, I have attached this account to my Twitch account where I subscribe to a content provider on their that gives the content provider I believe $4.99 a month but doesn’t cost me any extra. With that said I did buy digital content through Amazon (one tv series and one movie) that totaled $37.48. That brings my Amazon, excluding Audible, total for streaming entertainment to $138.36.
I have also been a member of Audible, which is an Amazon company, for many years. I subscribe to a monthly subscription that gives me 1 credit a month for $14.95. Each credit typically purchases an entire book that would retail between $20 and $45. I also purchased three additional credits one time for $35.88 and two separate books for $5.95 and $12.33 respectively. That brings my Audible total to $233.58.
Podcasts
I would say that a vast majority of my entertainment consumption throughout the year was podcasts. These are almost entirely free and are typically paid for by advertisements in the podcasts but a few of them I have added my support to in a monetary way.
The Skeptics Guide To The Universe is an amazing podcast that takes a skeptical and scientific viewpoint to issues of the day and general science and skeptical knowledge. I am a paid member which provides extra content as well as ad-free versions of their episodes. I’m at the $12 per month level which comes out to $144 a year.
Patreon is a service where consumers can patronize content producers of all different types and pledges to pay whenever content is created. I use this service to pay for episodes of podcasts directly for three different podcasts at this time; Cordkillers at $1 an episode, The Daily Tech News Show at $5 per month, and The Angry Chicken at $1 per episode. I’m considering increasing my patronage as well as bringing on more shows. Last year I paid $162 dollars to podcasts via Patreon.
Finally, I have been listening to a slew of NPR podcasts over the years and I decided that I would donate to my local NPR studio. I actually donated on January 1st but I’m including it hear as I meant to do it last year. That donation was for $120.
Miscellaneous
I didn’t calculate the following in as much detail as frankly it would have taken a considerable amount of research so I’m going to take an educated guess. I think I probably spent approximately $100 on physical books throughout the year. I also probably spent the same amount on Blu-ray Discs of television shows and movies. Many of those I believe I used gift certificates to purchase. I also spent probably $100 on additions to the game Hearthstone that I play on my phone. Again mostly from gift certificates.
The Bottom Line - $1801.98
Links
My movie tracking - https://letterboxd.com/martinatime/
My TV tracking - https://www.sidereel.com/profile/martinatime
My book tracking - https://www.goodreads.com/martinatime
List of movies I saw at the theaters in 2017
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
American Made
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
Murder on the Orient Express
Roman J. Israel
Thor: Ragnarok
Geostorm
Blade Runner 2049
The Snowman
Kingsman: The Golden Circle
The Mountain Between Us
The LEGO Ninjago Movie
American Assassin
It
Logan Lucky
The Hitman’s Bodyguard
The Big Sick
The Dark Tower
Spider-man: Homecoming
Dunkirk
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
Atomic Blonde
War for the Planet of the Apes
Despicable Me 3
Baby Driver
Transformers: The Last Knight
Wonder Woman
It Comes at Night
Baywatch
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
Alien: Covenant
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
The Lost City of Z
Gifted
Going In Style
The Fate of the Furious
The Boss Baby
Ghost in the Shell
Life
The Belko Experiment
Kong: Skull Island
The Great Wall
Logan
Get Out
The Lego Batman Movie
John Wick: Chapter 2
Split
Resident Evil: The Final Chapter
Underworld: Blood Wars
Assassin's Creed
A Dog's Purpose