Since taking a good look at my budget over the last year and really thinking about the money that goes into services it got me thinking a lot about music streaming. I went from Apple to Amazon and back to Apple via free trials etc but now I have been left without a trial and the prospect of £9.99 a month I sat back and thought about how I actually use a music streaming service.

What I found is that I listen to pretty much the same music on a daily basis. I do dip into recommended playlists every now and again but 80% of my listening is something I either already owned via iTunes or an album that I just listened to daily.

At over £100 a year I stopped and started to listen to just the music I purchased and haven’t really missed access to a streaming service. What I’m going to do is stick with this way of listening (I’m rediscovering loads of old music I used to listen to) and when I come up against something I really want to listen to I’ll just buy it outright. Even at £5-£9 an album I think I’ll half my costs going forward.

This is definitely a question worth asking yourself, do you listen to a lot of music or stick to the same stuff? If it’s the second one you may want to reconsider your subscription and pick up the music individually.