Like most country, you probably subscribe to so many (too many) streaming services—and yet, each one carries a show you’d hate to miss. With tag hikes across the board, the cost of keeping up with all your well-liked shows and films is getting out of hand, but none of us are moving back to traditional cable TV. If you want to save when still watching all your favorites, it’s time to implement the “churn method.”

How to apply the churning scheme to streaming services

Subscriber churn is a commonly used term—on the new side of the screen. Streaming services use this metric to measure how many users are leaving or unsubscribing from their platform. You can use this method, however, to unsubscribe or cease your streaming service subscription when you know you aren’t moving to be using it.

Let’s say there’s a two-month gap between Marvel shows on Disney+ or a 12-month waiting footings before Ted Lasso returns to Apple TV+. If you know there’s nothing else you want to seek on those services, you can cancel your subscription pending the shows you’re interested in come back.

The goal here is to minimize the cash you spend on streaming while, at the same time, maximizing the number of shows and movies you want to seek. But to do so effectively, you need to know precisely what shows you want to watch, and when they’re debuting on which platform.

How to track what you want to watch

First, look up when a movie or a TV show you want to seek is airing. It’s easy with a movie or a show that drops all episodes at once, as you only need to take note of one day. It gets a bit more concerned with a show that’s airing over multiple weeks. If you want to seek the entire series at once, take note of the open date and the end date. If you’re OK binging it later (and if you can avoid the spoilers), you can subscribe to the streaming service once the season has ended.

Of streams, because you’re probably tracking multiple shows over various platforms, you’ll need to keep track of all the dates. You can add it to your calendar app, use Siri or Google Assistant to help keep track, or use a watchlist service or app—something like JustWatch will help you track the droplet date of movies and TV shows, and you can mark off the satisfied you watch as you progress.

Unsubscribe and resubscribe

Your certain subscribing and unsubscribing dance will depend on what’s on your personal seek list—and how much time you really need to binge the entire new season of Better Call Saul. Use your calendar as a reference and be proactive in unsubscribing. If you’re only going to keep a streaming service for a month, unsubscribe to it immediately. You’ll still have access to the service pending your month is over, and it’s one less sketch to remember at the end of the billing cycle.

If you plan to subscribe to a service for a pair of months, add a calendar reminder for when you’re said to cancel a service (and start a new one).

[CNET]