I love Apple Music. I’ve had an Apple Music subscription for a while now. Apple has gotten my $9.99 plus tax every month. It’s no wonder their services division has grown so much!

It’s a product that allows you to listen to all the music you want for one low price.

There are some downsides. I don’t own any of the music and lose access if I don’t subscribe. The UI isn’t amazing and their recommendations sometimes miss the mark.

However, access to all that music is well worth the 9.99/month I pay for it. I get a ton of use out of it especially during my commute. The convenience factor is huge. I’ve listened to more new artists in the past few years than I have in all my life all thanks to these type of streaming services. This is a great time to be a music lover!

After all, who wants to go back to the old days where you had to own hundreds of CDs or even the more recent days where you had to pay for each MP3?

I can just have an Apple Music subscription and listed to anything and everything.

I felt pretty good about my $9.99/month until someone told me yesterday that I was throwing money away every damn month!

That’s because Apple offers an annual subscription that somehow isn’t the default option! I’ve gotten used to full price yearly offerings(see Amazon Prime) that I didn’t even check if this option exists here.

That means I’ve been paying $119.88/year when I could have been paying $99.00/year all this time.

That’s right, the Apple Music subscription is $20 cheaper when you subscribe for the entire year. That’s no surprise as annual subscriptions are generally cheaper.

The surprise, at least to me, came in realizing that an annual subscription actually exists.

I suppose I get why Apple doesn’t make it obvious. $9.99/month means more money for Apple and why rock that boat.

Sure, you’re not locking in people like you are with the annual subscription but this is the type of product that has decent stickiness.

I’m not sure how many people just get Apple Music for one month. It seems like the type of thing you sign up for and stay with for a while as you build playlists and download songs onto your phone. It’s hard to just cut it off after you’ve built up a collection of songs. That would mean losing everything until you subscribe again.

I certainly have no plan to cancel anytime soon and that’s why it makes sense for me get the annual subscription. That’s more money in my pocket baby! However, if you have to plans to cancel soon then an annual subscription might not be the best for you.

One of my goals this year(as it is every year) was to cut two bills and this helps me do just that! I’m saving $20/year and while that might not seem like much, it’ll add up across the years.

That’s why going forward, I’ll be seeing a $99.00 charge once a year instead of $9.99 each month.

There are ways to even get this number lower. If you have a Costco membership then you can get a $100 Apple iTunes gift card for ~$95. During certain times of the year, that number has been as low as $84.99 for a $100 gift card.

That means you’re saving more than $20 each year. It’s also a lot easier to plan that expense since it happens once a year versus occurring every month.

Unfortunately, the savings is only there for individual accounts so those with a family plan are out of luck. Still, if you have no plans to cancel anytime soon, it’s well worth it.

If you’re interested in making the change and want to save money then using your phone, iPad, follow the directions below from the Apple support website.

Go to Settings > [your name] > iTunes & App Store. Tap your Apple ID at the top of the screen. Tap View Apple ID. You might need to authenticate your Apple ID. Tap Subscriptions. Tap the subscription that you want to manage. Use the options to manage your subscription. You can choose a different subscription offering, or tap Cancel Subscription to cancel your subscription. If you cancel, your subscription will stop at the end of the current billing cycle.

And that’s it. If you’re the type of person who plans to stay subscribed for a long time then this might be the easiest money you save. It’s just a few clicks away on your phone so don’t hesitate to make that change right now!

Spotify users unfortunately do not have the same option. The company did have a $99/year deal in December of 2017 but it’s not an ongoing option. Hopefully that changes soon to a permanent deal so you can get those two months free! Costco members can get a yearly subscription card for around that price so it seems like Costco members win out again! Side note, I am not a member!

I’m not sure if this is news but it was to my brother and I. Hopefully, it can help others save a few bucks!

Now that I’ve found this out, I have to look at all my other monthly subscriptions that I plan to have for a while and see if they offer an annual deal! Unfortunately, I don’t think Netflix nor Hulu have anything like that!

Let me know if you have other easy money savings ideas like this one that are right in front of me but I’m too blind to see them!