Do you subscribe to premium movie channels? If so, you may be able to cut your movie bill in half with this one quick tip.

First off, take a look at how often you actually watch those channels. Is it daily, weekly, or rarely? How often do you watch movies on other channels? How about renting - do you rent movies more than you watch them on TV?

Before we made the switch from HBO to Netflix.com, I realized we were hardly ever watching movies on TV and renting all the time. Our total bill was well over $20 a month for both our movie channel subscriptions and our cost for renting. That didn’t make much sense now did it?

Since we don’t live anywhere close to a Blockbuster and still have to drive 20 miles to the nearest rental store, we decided Netflix was our best option. Currently we use their 1 DVD at a time option, which costs $8.99 a month. Actually, when we first started the cost was higher and they LOWERED the cost not too long ago. Pretty amazing if you ask me - when was the last time you heard of a company lowering costs for all their members?

On average, we get about 5 movies a month right now ONLY because I keep them for a few days. I could probably squeeze in 10 movies in a month if I returned them immediately. Since I don’t have to pay for the gas to return it, this is a heck of a deal to me. Plus of course I don’t have to pay extra for new releases.

Turn around time on the movies is VERY fast. When I drop a movie in the mail to return it, I can expect another one in 2 days. Plus if I wanted to watch something else in the mean time, I could watch movies online as well.

Overall we probably have saved an average of nearly $200/year just by getting rid of all our premium channels and switching to Netflix. Plus I get to watch all the movies I want to watch instead of what they want to show on TV. MUCH better option if you ask me!