I Saved $144 on These 4 Platform Memberships by Doing This 1 Thing

It's no small expense trying to stay entertained these days. How many streaming media platforms are there to choose from now? And it's probably not a great move for your personal finances to sign up for every one just so you can stay on top of the hit new shows. Even if you choose the lowest-priced membership with each platform, you could be paying $10 or $20 per month for each one if you choose a higher-tier plan. But if you have a little patience, there's a way to get these memberships for a lot less.

Wait for a free or discounted trial offer

The other day, I was looking up something on Amazon that I wanted to buy and placed the item in my cart to see when the delivery estimate would be. As I did, I noticed a big banner at the top of the page offering me 30 days of Amazon Prime for free. When paid monthly, an Amazon Prime membership normally costs $14.99, so that was a nice little savings Amazon was offering me to try to lure me back into being a long-term Prime member.

I've had a Prime membership in the past, though I've found myself using the site less often lately, and I can't justify the cost for how much I shop on the site anymore. But I've noticed that every once in a while, Amazon will share an offer like this with me to try out Amazon Prime again for free for a month. Usually I get the offer around the holidays, which is an especially convenient time to take advantage since I have quite a few gift recipients who live out of state.

Amazon isn't the only platform that sends me these offers. I'm currently using a three-month trial of Spotify Premium for $10.99. The normal cost of one month of this membership is $10.99, so that's a savings of $21.98 on top of the $14.99 I saved from Amazon. And ad-free tunes sure make the workday go by more smoothly.

I'm also about two months into a 12-month, $0.99-per-month Hulu membership that I snagged during a Black Friday promotion. Sure, it's the membership level with ads, but did you hear me when I said $0.99 a month? For a year. That's a lot of entertainment for under $12, and it would normally cost $7.99 per month.

I've even taken advantage of retention offers from Sirius XM radio in the past that ended up costing $1 per month for three months, a savings of $22.99 off the regular price. All this to say, these giant corporations want your business, and they're willing to sacrifice a little money in the short term to hopefully lure you back in as a long-term customer.

Cycle through memberships

The best way to ease the strain on your bank account when it comes to entertainment options is to sign up under a promotional deal. But make sure to mark your calendar with a reminder to cancel your membership when the promotional period ends. That way, you won't start getting automatically charged for the service when the full-price bill comes due.

Of course, things aren't always going to line up where one promotional offer is waiting in line when the previous one runs out. But you can still cycle through memberships, rather than signing up for a bunch of them at the same time, as a way to save money. While it's nice being able to watch or listen to whatever you want, when you want, it's unlikely you really need to. Instead, try signing up for one platform on a monthly basis, then rotating to a different platform when the new season of your favorite show is back. Once you're caught up over there, you can jump to another platform to check out the new series everyone is talking about.

While it's true that many platforms offer a lower per-month cost when you pay annually on your credit card rather than monthly, you're not going to see any savings if you sign up for all of them on an annual contract and only use each of them here and there. A better bet is to subscribe one at a time -- and even better if you can score a free or discounted few months in the process.