We have all let it happen. You sign up for the two-week trial of a streaming service and forget you ever signed up for it. Now it is three months later, and you just noticed that you have been charged over $60 every month for services you forgot you even had access to. With so many services from every television company out there it is easy to get caught up thinking you need all of them when you only watch one show on each service. But how do you decide which services to keep? 

I have bounced around between nearly every service for at least a month each during college, just trying to decide which services are worth keeping. I have determined that there are only two that I would argue are worth paying my own money for. I have used my family’s account for some of them, which is a great way to save yourself some cash without sacrificing the shows you want to watch, but with Netflix cracking down on this soon, more are likely to follow in this practice. You can also see if your cell phone plan offers any benefits that can be added to the plan. Usually these will come with added benefits on top of the streaming services for cheaper than they would be purchased by themselves but only if you use all the addons to the service. 

Overall, the two most worthwhile streaming services for me are Spotify and HBO Max. HBO has some of the widest variety in streaming options that I have found and is great for both new releases and for older, nostalgic shows. They get new movie releases before most other streaming services, sometimes even matching with a movie theatre release. They also have older Cartoon Network shows on it, which are great for taking a journey back in time. I still love sitting on the couch with a bag of chips watching a marathon of “Adventure Time” just like I did back in elementary school. HBO also offers the Studio Ghibli collection, which is a fantastic watch for anyone who enjoys quality animation with a great, albeit weird, plot.  

The other streaming service that I would pay for every time is Spotify, specifically the college bundle because you get Spotify Premium, Hulu, and Showtime for around half the price of a normal Spotify membership, but it will only last for four consecutive years maximum. With Hulu you get a wide range of shows that change all the time. My personal favorite to watch on Hulu is “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” I have not used Showtime much since having it, but it does have a wide range of movies available, so if you are a movie buff, then that will be a great service to add to your roster.  

An honorable mention is the loads of free streaming services that are available. These will not have much in the way of new offerings, but for watching that movie that you have not seen in years they will do the trick. Since they are free, there really is not anything stopping you from downloading all of them. My favorites are Pluto TV or Tubi, but that really changes based on what they have available now and that is how I recommend all the services. Find the ones that have what you want to watch, set reminders to cancel the free trials before getting charged, and only keep a couple of them that have a lot of shows or movies you like rather than keeping one service just for one show because at that point you might as well just buy the DVD collection. 

Dylan Enerson is a Dakota Student General Reporter. He can be reached at [email protected].