Leave a comment with how much this saved you :)
Go to https://surfshark.com/boss or use code BOSS at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!
Go to https://surfshark.com/boss or use code BOSS at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00I've been using tech like this for the last 15 years and so trust me when I say you're spending
00:04more than you need to on these subscriptions and these products. There are so many surprising ways
00:10to pay less and to actually get more that I just decided let's put this all together into one
00:16bumper video. Many subscription services will only give you their best rates if you specifically try
00:21to quit. Like one example I had recently was Now TV. So a Now TV subscription here in the UK is $9.99
00:26a month. Here's what happens if you try and cancel that membership. So first it tries to solve any
00:31issues that you might be having and if you're not having any issues then you can continue your
00:34cancellation. Then it tries the hard sell. It's like telling me all the things I'm going to be missing
00:38out on. Continue cancellation and then look at this before you go here's what else you'll be missing
00:42and it's only when you click continue again that they properly get down on their knees and beg you
00:47with a 50% discount. And then if you decide you want to give them the boot one more time there's a pretty
00:51decent chance they will make an even better offer to you. But whatever happens you're saving at least
00:55the equivalent of $35. So let's keep track of how much we're saving on this bar over here
01:00because it's not just online subscriptions. In fact your mobile and your TV service providers are
01:05one of the best places to play this strategy. Essentially you just find out what other service
01:10providers in your area could be cheaper. You tell this to your existing service provider over the phone
01:15and this is the important bit you actually have to convince them that you're planning on switching.
01:19So for example if you were changing mobile phone contracts here in the UK you'd have to ask for your
01:23pack code which is the code that you'd need to give to your new service provider. And that will
01:27very often trigger either an immediate discount on the spot or a follow-up call a couple of days later
01:33with a discount ready. This is called a customer save and it's like a very real thing that sales
01:38reps at these types of companies are constantly given targets to try and hit. And so you'll actually
01:43have a particularly high success rate if you try this near the end of a month where they will
01:47actually need that particular save to meet their targets. I did this on my own phone contract a few months
01:52ago and I managed to get my rate down from £18 a month to £11 a month. Exact same package.
01:59If you're about to buy a laptop you can go for less internal storage and then just use adhesive
02:03pouches like this to attach external storage instead. Which means let's say I was buying a
02:08MacBook Pro. I can either pay Apple $2,400 to upgrade to an 8TB storage drive or I can pay $1,100
02:15buying two of these very similar speed 4TB external drives. It adds a bit of weight, yeah. But then at the
02:21same time there's a lot of upsides. Like these drives allow you to create instant external backups.
02:26Handing files to friends is as simple as unplugging and then replugging. You can also use these pouches
02:30to store extra bits like your AirPods and it also saves you $1,300. Apple One. Apple's combo
02:38subscription that gives you all the Apple subscriptions in, well, One has a family plan
02:42where you can share it with up to five other family members. But as long as you live in the same
02:47country as the people you're sharing with, no one's cracking open a DNA test to verify.
02:52So let's say that you're currently on the Apple individual plan. You'd be paying $20 a month. If
02:56you instead upgrade to Premiere but then you share that subscription with five other people, you
03:00actually end up paying a lot less and getting a lot more. You would save $163 per year and you'd get
03:07more services. You'd get Apple News Plus, you'd get Apple Fitness Plus and you get 40 times the cloud
03:12storage, which even if you split evenly amongst the six of you, is still a lot more than you used
03:17to get. Oh, and this family plan trick, it applies to many subscriptions. So just as another example,
03:23a year of Nintendo Switch Online is $20 a year. The family plan is $35 for up to eight people,
03:29which ends up as a quarter of the price per person compared to a solo membership. And you still don't
03:34need to live at the same address. If you're ever in the market for a new camera, then using a gray market
03:38sites like Panama's or E-Infinity can straight up save you 25%. These sites are completely legal,
03:45but they just exploit a loophole in which most of this gear is far cheaper in Asian countries because
03:49of lower sales tax and just more competitive pricing. So these companies just take stock from
03:54there and they sell it directly to Westerners. So you're not going to get much in the way of an
03:58in-store warranty. But if you're buying something that you feel is pretty reliable, then it's a very
04:02easy way to save a straight up $1,000 on your camera body and lens. And also, while we're on cameras,
04:08you can get, no exaggeration, 97% of the experience by buying a model from a few years ago at like
04:1460% of the price. And it's just because the camera market is so mature nowadays that each new generation
04:20is making very minor tweaks as opposed to big shifts. So for example, you can very easily find
04:25a Sony a7 III for around $1,300 new. The a7 IV is $2,000 and it's not going to affect the images you can
04:32take. The vast majority of people will be better off taking that $700 saving and just putting it into
04:37better lenses. If your TV is starting to get slow, but you're still happy with the picture quality,
04:43then instead of replacing the whole thing, just buy an Apple TV 4K box and it will essentially swap out
04:48the old sluggish brains on your TV for a completely new, very fast brain, along with this swanky metal
04:54remote that will actually make it feel like a new experience. And you can get one of these for
04:59pretty much nothing over $120, saving you at least a few hundred dollars if you now no longer need to
05:05go out and buy a new TV. If you've got an iPhone, then Apple TV is a bit of a no-brainer. But I've
05:09also got friends who've got Android phones for which they still prefer the slickness of Apple TV
05:14as opposed to the Google equivalents or the Roku equivalents. For smartphones, last year's flagship
05:20phone is almost always a better buy than this year's mid-ranger, if you can find it new from a
05:25reputable company. It might seem like newer is always better, but mid-range phones in almost all cases
05:30are just using older parts anyway. It's just that they also happen to have less software support,
05:35worse quality cameras, worse build quality, the list goes on. So as an example, the Google Pixel 9a
05:41is Google's 2025 mid-range phone at $499. But it really doesn't make any sense to buy one at that
05:48price, given that you can get the actual flagship Google Pixel 9 from 2024 for a little more at $599
05:54and have a far better experience that, importantly, is also going to last you longer. Also, don't buy
06:01fast-charging bricks from the phone brands themselves. They do charge, it's just what they
06:06charge is a massive markup, just because people assume that that's the one that they need to buy,
06:11but it isn't. Like Samsung will charge you $50 for a 45-watt power brick. If you spend that same money
06:16on a brand like Anker or Ugreen, you'll literally get a 100-watt power brick that could not just handle
06:21your phone, but your laptop too. And if you don't want that, just buy their 45-watt charger and save
06:2650% of the dollar. It is amazing how many people haven't realized this yet, but all three of the
06:32major console makers all have ways to be able to share your digital games with your friends,
06:37not just your physical ones. So for example, Nintendo has this brand new virtual game cards
06:41feature, which allows you to share certain digital games with your friends by loading and ejecting the
06:46games as if they were real cartridges. So they're only playable on one console at a time,
06:50but that's still a lot better than both people having to buy separate copies of the game.
06:54And PlayStation and Xbox, while they don't actively advertise this, you can still absolutely achieve
06:59a very similar setup using either PlayStation's console sharing or Xbox's ability to have both
07:04a home Xbox and then effectively an away Xbox, saving you $40 to $60 for every game that you now
07:11no longer need to buy a second copy of. And maybe $100 for GTA 6, who knows?
07:16Be on the lookout for streaming service bundles. Like if there's a bunch of shows you watch on
07:21different platforms, there's a decent chance you can get those services thrown in together
07:24for a bundle price. Oh my God, Samsung, gotta fix these loading times. Like for example,
07:31Disney Plus with Hulu and Macs in the US, which costs $17 for the bundle a month, as opposed to 30
07:37if you were to get each of them on their own. $156 saved, just like that. Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation
07:44Plus are a really cost effective way to get access to a massive library of games. And unlike in the
07:50early days, the companies have actually started adding their heavy hitter titles to these. With
07:54Game Pass, for example, which is $17 a month, they literally just day one dropped Oblivion Remastered
07:59on there, which you'd struggle to buy for less than $40 at retail. So as long as you play at least one
08:04new game a month, you're almost guaranteed to beat the market. And I did used to be very resistant
08:09to the idea of this because I've always liked the idea of like owning a game. But let's face it,
08:13we are moving towards everything becoming digital with newer consoles not even coming
08:17with disk drives. So you don't really own your games anyways. So you might as well just save
08:23some money and rent them. As for how much this saves you, it's going to depend a lot on who
08:27you are. But if we're being very conservative, you should save at least $15 a month by just
08:33being a bit more flexible and waiting for games to become available on these services.
08:37And related to this, but arguably even better, the seasonal sales on Steam are absolutely nutty.
08:44For example, in their spring sale this year, Undertale was literally less than $1, which
08:48was a 90% discount. The Incredible Sifu was 60% off and Outer Wilds was 40% off. But also
08:54more recent games like Star Wars Outlaws and EA Sports FC were down by 50% and 70% respectively.
09:00Now that doesn't mean hold yourself to this by law. Like if you really want to play a game right
09:04away, just buy the game and play it now. But if you just know that you want to play something
09:08and you're less fussed about when, add them to your Steam wishlist and eventually you'll
09:13see that sweet, sweet, a game on your wishlist is on sale notification and you know it's paid
09:17off. So you can get off paying.
09:21When you're buying tech online, if you haven't heard of the brand, just do a double check to
09:25make sure that you're actually buying from the source. It's such a common thing now with
09:28online marketplaces like Amazon and TikTok shop for sellers to quickly put together a new
09:33brand. They'll pick a random string of four to eight letters that's cheap to trademark and also
09:37cheap to discard if it ever starts picking up bad reviews. Like our good friends Long Yeefer.
09:43They'll buy the actual product from something like AliExpress and sell it to you for four times the
09:47price. Almost five actually in this case. Also, if you are going to shop on Amazon, two more things.
09:52First, keep a very close eye on which listings are sponsored and which aren't. Because the ones that
09:57will appear higher in search will almost always be the sponsored ones. And therefore also a less
10:01good match than the actual top recommendation that you'll find just below them with like a
10:05nanometer of scrolling. So let's say I was searching for a new mechanical keyboard. So look at this.
10:10All first three options are sponsored and they either have no reviews or not great reviews. Then as soon
10:16as you go below that, you've got products with literally hundreds of very positive reviews. And
10:21second, if you're a bit of an Amazon power user, you will quite enjoy this site called Haggelson. So you
10:27search for something just like you would on Amazon, but this tells you all the different prices of that
10:31same product across all the different European stores. So this one isn't for Americans, sadly.
10:37If you bump into a product where there's an enormous difference, which is actually not a very rare
10:40occurrence at all, you just click it. It'll take you to the Amazon product page. And then you just
10:44see if there's any extra shipping cost and if that ends up being worth the saving, which could very
10:49easily save you 30 a month. Whenever you buy a new electronic device, it's always worth finding out how
10:54much you can get by trading in your old one. It is a lot easier than the whole process of listing and
10:59selling on eBay. And you might actually get more, especially with Apple devices. Apple has one of
11:03the stronger refurbished programs. And so they're pretty confident that if they buy a used phone
11:08off you, that they can still sell it on for even more. Like an iPhone 13, for example, you could
11:13either list it on eBay and get maybe $230. And if you sell, you'll get about 210 of that once you
11:19factor in shipping. Or let's hop onto the Apple trade-in website, find your trade-in value. Yes,
11:24it's Apple. Scroll down, select iPhone 13. And then Apple isn't actually fussed about what condition
11:30your phone is in. It's more really, does it work or not? If it works, you get $250 towards your next
11:37iPhone. If you can avoid it, don't use Uber Eats or Deliveroo. I'm not about to say you need to start
11:43growing your own sushi, but I am saying try to buy directly from the restaurant first and only resort to
11:49these delivery services if that's just not an option. Because if there is, 99% of the time,
11:54either the meal or the delivery cost, or to be honest, most likely both will be cheaper by doing
12:00so. So for example, local pizza place in my old hometown, Caprino's, the exact, exact same pizza
12:06plus delivery that would be £13.49 if you use the Caprino's website will now become £22.06 if you
12:14order via Deliveroo. Watch out for vampire devices. Which, it sounds scarier than it is,
12:23but it's basically electronics that continue to draw power even when you don't think they're on,
12:28which you can completely stop by just unplugging them. Pretty much every product that has some kind
12:32of standby function will be sipping power. And so it's worth just doing one pass through of all the
12:37things you own and deciding for which products you need that instant always-on accessibility for,
12:42and for which you don't. The biggest power suckers do tend to be set-top boxes, PCs,
12:47games consoles, and even laptop chargers. They will drain power even if there's no laptop attached.
12:52So assuming that you unplug the worst offenders, but that you're not taking it to its literal extreme,
12:57you should expect to save $50 a year. Mobile apps will often be a lot better optimized for your
13:03mobile data usage than websites. Which means, let's say you decide you want to watch YouTube,
13:07watch it on the YouTube app instead of the browser. You want to scroll Reddit,
13:10then help Rando's farm karma using the mobile app, and you'll save anywhere between 10% to 30% of your
13:17data and be less likely to go over your data cap. And speaking of data caps, if you haven't set one up
13:22yet, then please, please do. Android has the feature baked in, so you should just be able to go into your
13:27mobile network settings and set data limit here. If you're on iPhone, then you'll need to go through
13:32your mobile carriers app and set the restriction that way. But either way, it needs to be done,
13:36because if you accidentally drift over your prepaid data allowance, that is when you enter
13:41carriers charging you whatever they feel like territory. And it's a dark place, my friends.
13:46It's not uncommon to be paying above $15 per extra gigabyte. And bonus one, which I also think is a
13:52complete beggar, if you want to watch a show online, let's say in my case, How I Met Your Mother,
13:56which I'm currently binging for the fourth time, then in the UK at least, you need a Disney Plus
14:01subscription. Or do you? Because if you use Surfshark VPN, our sponsor, to switch location
14:07from UK to US, you can actually just watch the show on Netflix US. So assuming you're already paying
14:12for Netflix, this stops you needing to double up. And that saves you quite a lot of money. If you go
14:17to surfshark.com slash boss and use the code boss, it ends up at around $2 a month. Disney Plus would be
14:22the equivalent of $10 a month, or $15 if you want Ultra HD, because of course it is. Plus, you can share
14:28that Surfshark subscription with as many people as you want, with zero restrictions. So as long
14:33as you're smart about it, you can pay as little as you want to pay for it. Not to mention the
14:37hundreds of other perks of VPN, like increased security when you're on a public Wi-Fi network.
14:42So that is quite a significant potential saving from one video. Let me know your favorite tricks,
14:48and maybe we'll do an episode two.