The other day, I wanted to show my mum a video on YouTube. I searched for the video, tapped on the right one, and an advertisement for some makeup wipes began blaring out of my phone’s speakers.
“Aiyo, why don’t you share my YouTube Premium?” my mum said.
“It isn’t like Spotify Family, you can’t share it,” I told her. Then, it hit me. “Wait. You have YouTube Premium?”
“Yeah, I do!” my mum said proudly.
My sister and I looked at each other, aghast. “That’s a red flag,” my sister declared.
This incident started a discussion in my family—is YouTube premium worth it? What about Spotify? Netflix?
Not all subscription services are made equal. From my family’s debates, the deep recesses of Reddit, and my own calculations, here are the top 6 subscriptions I think are worth spending on.
Music streaming: Spotify
Once upon a time, we all bought CDs or downloaded MP3s of our favourite songs one by one. Each purchase would cost you—I recall CDs costing between $15 and $20, while songs on the iTunes Store back in the day cost about $1 each, give or take. Over weeks, months and years, these costs could really add up. Not to mention take up storage on your phone!
These days, there’s a more elegant solution: music streaming. And we can’t talk about music streaming without talking about popular music streaming platform, Spotify. Spotify provides access to a large library of songs, podcasts, and playlists. Known for its personalised recommendations and user-friendly interface, it’s the go-to choice for many music enthusiasts. It’s almost become an essential good—a utility bill, as this Redditor put it:
Spotify does have a free version, but it will quickly annoy you. The free mobile version only lets you skip 6 tracks per hour, you can’t play a specific song but rather only shuffle a whole album or playlist, and your listening experience will be plagued by ads. While the free desktop version does better on the playback controls front, the ads alone will still kill your groove.
| Spotify Premium plan | Cost per month |
| Individual (1 Premium account) | $10.98 |
| Student (1 Premium account) | $5.98 |
| Duo (2 Premium accounts) | $14.98 ($7.49 per person) |
| Family (up to 6 Premium accounts) | $17.98 ($3 per person with 6 people) |
The most affordable Spotify Premium option is the Family plan, which costs $17.98 for up to 6 Premium accounts registered with the same postal code. If you have 6 members, that comes up to just $3 per person each month. $3 per month to be able to stream practically any music out there is way better than using that $3 to buy 3 MP3 tracks.
Video streaming platform
Gone are the days of cable TV. Everything these days is on demand, and we’re spoilt for choice when it comes to movie and show streaming platforms. Here are the biggest players:
- Amazon Prime Video features a huge selection of movies, TV shows, and original content— 26,300+ movies and 2,700+ TV shows. It’s included with an Amazon Prime membership.
- Apple TV+ offers a curated selection of original high-quality shows, movies, and documentaries. The selection of programmes numbers just a few hundred, but many—Joe Keeley of How-To Geek is one of them—say they have quality over quantity.
- Disney+ provides a vast collection of movies and TV series from Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, and National Geographic. According to the Disney Plus Help Centre, a subscription gives you access to over 500 films, 15,000 episodes, and 80 Disney+ Originals.
- Disney+ Standard: Up to 1080p Full HD video, up to 5.1 audio & 2 concurrent streams
- Disney+ Premium: Up to 4K UHD & HDR video, up to Dolby Atmos audio & 4 concurrent streams
- Netflix offers a wide variety of movies, TV shows, original content, and even games. According to streaming guide JustWatch, Netflix is home to over 3,600 movies and 1,800 TV shows.
Here are their prices:
| Streaming service | Cost per month | Number of members/devices |
| Amazon Prime Video | $2.99 for Amazon Prime | With 1 Amazon account, you can stream up to 3 titles at the same time. However, the same title can be streamed to no more than 2 devices at a time. |
| Apple TV | $13.98 / Free for 3 months when you buy an Apple device | Share your subscription with up to 5 people. |
| Disney+ | Disney+ Standard: From $12.98 Disney+ Premium: From $15.98 |
Disney+ Standard: 2 concurrent streams Disney+ Premium: 4 concurrent streams |
| Netflix | – Basic: $13.98 – Standard: $19.98 – Premium: $25.98 Extra member slots can be added for $6.98 each month. |
Each Netflix subscription is meant to cater to a household. The Basic, Standard, and Premium plans allow you to watch on 1, 2, and 4 supported devices at a time respectively. The Standard and Premium plans let you add 1 and 2 additional members respectively who don’t live with you. |
From a purely financial perspective, Amazon Prime is very value for money. At just $2.99/month, you get access to thousands of programmes on Amazon Prime Video plus other perks:
- Amazon Fresh: Free 2-hour scheduled delivery on your groceries for eligible orders S$150 and above.
- Free international delivery: Get free delivery on millions of eligible items sold by Amazon US and Amazon Japan when you shop on Amazon.sg.
- Free and fast local delivery: Get eligible items shipped by Amazon SG for free and as fast as the very next day.
- Prime Gaming: Get access to free games, a free monthly Twitch channel subscription, and more.
However, if you don’t normally shop on Amazon and don’t see yourself doing so in the near future, don’t be wooed by these extra benefits. Know your main goal here. If you want a streaming service, choose a service with shows you know you’ll actually want to watch. Even the other more expensive options are still under $14 a month.
What about YouTube Premium?
Didn’t I begin this article with that account of my sister and I shaming my mother for getting YouTube Premium? Isn’t that a red flag, as my sister said?
Well, yes. I stand by what I said. I personally wouldn’t get YouTube Premium just to get rid of those ads. But I can think of several situations in which investing in YouTube Premium might be worth your time. For example, my mother is a lecturer and makes use of YouTube for her classes regularly. There’s only so many times students with already short attention spans can watch an ad for the latest household cleaning solutions. My mother told me since she couldn’t stand the ads and neither could her students, getting YouTube Premium is one of the best purchases she’s ever made.
Redditor jndmack is a mother who plays YouTube videos to keep her kid(s) entertained for some well-needed peace and quiet. This is another situation in which I can see why one would benefit from paying for YouTube Premium.
If your life or work circumstances are such that you rely heavily on YouTube, go ahead and get Premium. It’ll cost you between $6.98 to $11.98 a month:
| YouTube Premium plan | Cost per month |
| Individual | $11.98 |
| Family (add up to 5 family members in your household) | $17.98 ($3 per person with 6 members) |
| Student | $6.98 |
YouTube Premium upgrades your video streaming experience to be ad-free, with options to watch offline and/or in the background. Membership also comes with YouTube Music Premium, which I encourage you to make full use of by downloading the YouTube Music app if you’re already on YouTube Premium.
Some might choose YouTube Music over Spotify. You could, but the downside is that you lose the social/community aspect of the latter since most people are on Spotify instead.
Gym membership
Sure, you could buy weights from Decathlon for under $50 and follow workout videos on YouTube for free. But nothing beats a gym membership for access to fitness equipment and, for some gyms, group workout classes. Some of us don’t have the space at home to create a small home gym, and some of us feel motivated when exercising in a group.
I’ve also had friends tell me that paying for their monthly gym membership is the impetus they need to exercise—otherwise, they would be wasting their hard-earned cash, right? For Redditor icrushallevil, a gym membership is exactly what they need for their severe PTSD; a structured fitness regime can be very important for mental health too.
If that sounds like you, a gym membership can be very value for money if you go several times a week. We have a full article on gym memberships under $100/month in Singapore to give you some ideas of where you could go. The cheapest options are ActiveSG and HomeTeamNS Fitness Workz gyms, which start from just $7 and $41 a month. The 24-hour Dennis Gym is the next step up, at $60+ a month.
Library membership (National Library Board)
As Redditor seanofkelley says, a library membership is underrated: “Access to all the books and most of the magazines in the world. Tons of databases. Learning resources. A nice cozy place to do work/study/read.”
For Singapore’s public libraries, membership is free—or rather, you pay for it with your taxes—if you’re a Singaporean. Otherwise, you can pay a one-time registration fee:
| Membership type | Cost of membership |
| Singaporeans | Free |
| Permanent residents | $10.69 (one-time registration fee) |
| Permanent residents who are MOE students below 21 years old | Free |
| Foreigners | $10.69 (one-time registration fee) and an annual fee of $43.60 |
| Foreigners who are MOE students below 21 years old | Free |
All of the basic membership types above let you borrow up to 16 physical items and 16 eBooks (including eAudiobooks) for 21 days. If you’re a PAssion cardholder, you can also upgrade to Partner Membership to borrow up to 24 physical items and 16 eBooks (including eAudiobooks).
Redditor baby_yaga says:
“I’m a librarian so I’m obligated to comment on this! Use your library! You already pay for it! Movies, music, books, comics. If we don’t have it, we’ll try to get it. We set aside a portion of our materials budget specifically for patron requests.”
In Singapore, you can recommend a title to NLB via the NLB mobile app by going to More > Recommend a Title to NLB:
Note that doing this doesn’t guarantee NLB will purchase the title you want. I’ve recommended 3 non-fiction books to NLB and had all of them rejected with the message “unable to purchase”. I’m not the only one too.
However, in the grand scheme of things, can we really complain when a basic membership already gives you access to thousands of books, magazines, and more? If you’re a Singaporean, make use of your free membership. If you’re a PR or foreigner and intend to stay in Singapore for a good few months, I would highly recommend paying for a library membership.
A SIM-only phone plan
This one isn’t just worth spending on, it’s a “must to spend on”. In this day and age, there’s no way you can survive without internet access on the go—we use mobile internet for everything from ordering food via QR code at restaurants to accessing Singpass.
The only thing I want to highlight is that generally, you should get a SIM-only phone plan and buy the phone separately instead of getting those pricier mobile contract plans that give you a phone “for free”. For example, let’s take M1’s current Bespoke contract offer for the iPhone 15 (128 GB)—pay $613 upfront for the phone, then pay $60.51 per month for 2 years for 30 GB of data. The alternative is to buy the phone separately and get a SIM-only, no contract plan for the data.
Here’s how much you’ll pay in total over 2 years with both options:
| M1 Bespoke contract plan with phone and data included | Buy phone + SIM-only plan | |
| Cost of phone | $613 | $1,311 |
| Cost of data over 2 years | $1,452.24 ($60.51/month) | $240 ($10/month with M1 Maxx) |
| Total | $2,065.24 | $1,551 |
Try these calculations with other telco providers and you’ll find the same pattern. As far as I know, SIM-only plans always cost less.
Data storage
I don’t know about you, but I have over 35,000 photos on my phone (I’m pretty sure 34,999 of which are of my cat). I wouldn’t be able to survive without iCloud storage. It works best for me because I use an iPhone, but there are plenty of other storage options out there for all kinds of files, including photos, videos, music, apps, documents, and more.
I consider cloud storage worth spending on because it definitely beats spending an extra few hundred bucks on a 512 GB phone that you’ll just need to port over the contents of to your new phone in 5 years time. Plus, you can lose a phone or laptop, but the only thing you can lose on a reliable cloud storage platform is memory of your password.
Here are some cloud storage solutions and prices for mobile storage and workspaces:
| Cloud storage | Cost |
| Dropbox | – Plus (personal use): US$9.99/month for 2 TB – Essentials (for professionals): US$16.58/month for 3 TB |
| Google Cloud Storage | US$0.020 per GB per month |
| Google Drive | – S$8/month per user for 30 GB – S$12/month per user for 2 TB – S$24/month per user for 5 TB |
| iCloud+ (for Apple users) | – S$1.48/month for 50GB – S$3.98/month for 200GB– S$13.98/month for 2TB – S$42.98/month for 6 TB – S$84.98/month for 12 TB Family sharing (up to 5 family members) is available for all iCloud+ plans. |
| Microsoft OneDrive | – Microsoft 365 Basic: $29/year for 100 GB – Microsoft 365 Personal: $108/year for 1 TB – Microsoft 365 Family: $148/year for 6 TB |
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About the author
Vanessa Nah is a personal finance content writer who pens articles on the ins and outs of buying your first home, the T&Cs of credit cards, and the ups and downs of alternative investments. She’s a researcher at heart and leaves no stone unturned when it comes to breaking down complex finance concepts and making them easy to understand for the everyday Singaporean. When Vanessa’s not debunking finance myths, you’ll find her attending dance classes, fingerpicking a guitar, or (most impawtently) fulfilling her life mission to make her one-eyed cat the most spoiled and loved kitty in the world.