Subscriptions wind up being a large portion of a lot of people’s bills. What kinds of subscriptions do people have? Cable TV, Internet, Cell Phones, Magazines, DVD rental services, Satellite radio, etc. At what point does it become more prudent to buy a lifetime or annual subscription for these services? And at what point do you decide to just stick with the month-to-month billing that you currently use? Not all of the services I mentioned offer lifetime subscriptions but I will go over the ones that do.

Satellite radio:

Both XM and Sirius offer all of their respective channels for $12.95/month. If you want the package that has all of their channels plus the best of the other service it comes to $16.99/month. The lifetime subscriptions come around every so often and recently have been priced at $399 for the everything service and $499 for the everything plus best of service. These subscriptions are for the lifetime of the actual receiver not your lifetime (or Sirius XM’s lifetime :p). If you do the calculations you would need to operate the same receiver for 31 months for the $12.95 plan to break even and 29 months for the $16.99 plan.

Math for $399 Lifetime subscription:
$399 for unit’s lifetime divided by $12.95 per month = Break-even point
30.8 months = BEP

Math for $499 Lifetime subscription:
($499 lifetime divided by $16.99 per month = Break-even point) 29.4 months = BEP

So, as long as you figure your unit will last more than about 30 months the lifetime subscription makes sense. I don’t think that is a very unreasonable assumption, either. However, one thing you may need to be concerned about is whether or not Sirius XM will be around in 2-3 years. Word has it they are preparing for the possibility of filing for bankruptcy.

Another thing that I am not taking into account into these calculations is whether or not you can get yourself onto a promotional rate. A lot of people have claimed success getting onto a $77/year plan for at least a year. Let us assume that the $77 is a promotional rate for the first year only and then you go back up to the advertised $12.95/month rate. For the $399 lifetime subscription this would now take 37 months to break-even, an extra 6 months. If you found success extending the promotion to a second year the lifetime subscription keeps looking less and less attractive.

TIVO:

A lot of people swear by their TiVo. And from what I have seen they are pretty neat things. However, I think the best cost savings is simply eliminating your dependency on your TV altogether. However, if you are not willing to do so, is buying the lifetime subscription a good cost-savings measure?A TiVo subscription typically goes for $12.95/month. You can get an annual plan for $129 which averages to $10.75/month. You can get a three-year plan for $299 which averages to $8.31/month. One important thing to note about these two plans is that they are set prices for 1 or 3 years, they are not attached to any particular DVR. Then TiVo offers its lifetime subscription for $399 which is attached to a particular DVR unit, not your account. How can we calculate if it is worth it to get this option instead?

Math for $399 Lifetime subscription, option A:
($399 lifetime divided by $10.75 per month = Break-even point)
37.1 months = BEP

Math for $399 Lifetime subscription, option B:
($399 lifetime minus ($8.31 per month * 3 years)) = (Remaining balance of $99.84 after 3 year contract divided by $10.75/month for shortest term contract) = 36 months + 9.3 months = 45.3 months = Break-even point
45.3 months = BEP

In Option B I tried to calculate it as fairly as possible. Doing a straight calculation of $8.31/month would have been deceitful as you would then be tied into a contract for 2+ more years after the break-even point. So I did the first 36 months at the lower rate and then divided the remainder by the shortest term contract available of one year. After all is said and done you would be locked into a contract for about 2-3 more months after the BEP. I think this was the most logical way to do it.

So, is it worth it? If you think you would want to update your DVR within the next 3 years then the lifetime subscription would not be worth it when calculating the BEP against signing three consecutive 1 year contracts. If you were to look at Option B you would be locked into your DVR for 4 years. I think with the way technology is going forward, the three year contract would be the best bet since it still lets you change your DVR and stay at the same rate.

Magazines:

A lot of magazines offer lifetime subscriptions. I will look at one in particular, National Geographic. You can buy a lifetime subscription to this magazine for $850. That would make a pretty amazing baby shower gift! However, you can get one year (12 issues) of National Geographic for $15 right on their own site. Let’s assume we can only find that offer this year. There are plenty of other websites that aggregate cheap magazine subscription offers, though. I will base my calculations off of a site I have used before which offers good discounts pretty consistently. Mags4Cheap has a year subscription to National Geographic for $34. It would take 25.5 years to recoup this cost.

Math for $850 Lifetime subscription:
($850 lifetime minus $15 for the first year) = (Remaining balance of $835 divided by $34/year from Mags4Cheap) = 1 year + 24.5 years = 25.5 years = Break-even point
25.5 years = BEP

Does this make sense for you? If you are older, maybe not. If you are a casual reader, again… maybe not. But if you are doing something like buying it for a young child as I mentioned, this could be a great idea! My calculations do not include the effects of inflation because I wanted to make the calculations easier. I don’t think it would effect the numbers that greatly, but if anyone wants to throw those numbers out go ahead and post them!

Zoo/Museum Membership:

A lot of zoos, aquariums, and museums are getting expensive. For example, if I were a married man with 2 children under 18 and wanted to go to my city zoo with my sister and her husband it would cost $132 just to park and get in. If my children wanted to ride the water boats or the “safari” train that could add an additional $10-40 depending on if they went alone or with all of the adults. So the total cost of the day? $142-172 to park, get in, and let my children go on two of the rides. No food included. Wow! That is a crying shame because of how educational and awe-inspiring a zoo can be for a child. I got spoiled as I was less than an hour away from the free Washington DC zoo from when I was 2 years old until I was 22. I never even realized how expensive zoos and museums are in other cities!

So what is a good alternative? A family membership pass can windup saving you a bundle.The zoo in my current city offers a family pass for 2 adults, any children under 18, 2 guests, and one free ride per visit for each person on each of the attractions. Total price tag? $219! Wow! As I just went over, one visit could easily separate you and $172. As long as you enjoy the zoo and go more than twice or three times the family pass is a GREAT deal. Especially when you consider the educational value!Not all zoos and museums offer lifetime subscriptions so I went over the annual family pass. When researching the lifetime passes to zoos and museums it seems a lot of them run at around $500 per person. My city does not have this so feel free to chime in and let me know your experience. If you use my above example of me, my wife, and 2 children (taking out the sister and brother-in-law) a lifetime pass would cost $2,000. Each visit for the four of us would cost about $115. As long as we went 17 times then this would be the best option.

Math for $2,000 Lifetime subscription for 4:
($2,000 lifetime divided by $115 per visit = Break-even point)
17.4 visits = BEP

Your mileage may vary dependent on where you live but it is something worth looking at.

These are four subscriptions or services I thought I would go over. Does anyone have any other suggestions or questions? Leave a comment!