Save money: buy a DVR or TiVo

A big part of just about everyone's entertainment budget each month goes towards movies. Whether you are going to the theater, renting through OnDemand or a service, or buying movies and TV shows, you can save money toward your cash reserve by investing in a DVR or TiVo. You are already paying for your TV service, so you may as well get more use out of it and save yourself a couple hundred dollars a year by watching what's on TV on your schedule rather than spending money on other forms of visual entertainment.

The average movie ticket costs $7.50. The average family goes to the theater at least twice a month. A family of four spends $120 a month or more on viewing movies in the theater. Two to three months worth of theater-going would buy you a DVR or TiVo that allows you to record up to three television programs at once and watch them at your leisure. The average price of a TiVo or DVR is $250, and the price is dropping. If you were watching a TV movie that you recorded on your TiVo just one weekend a month rather than going to the movie theater, you would save at least $500 a year to put into your cash reserve and could save you even more depending on your movie-going habits.

Renting movies can be money-saving itself, but if you get a TiVo or DVR, you can save even more. Blockbuster rents new release movies or TV series on DVD for $3.99 per disc and older titles 2 for $5. If you rent one new release and two older titles three times a month from Blockbuster, you would be spending about $27 a month or $324 a year. Buying a TiVo or DVR would save you $75 the first year, and over $300 every year there after. If you rented your favorite TV series from Blockbuster it would cost you around $24, whereas if you record it on TiVo it would cost you nothing and there would be no late fee in case you weren't done in a certain amount of time. OnDemand movies and programs on average cost $5. You can rent your kid's favorite TV show twice a week so they can watch it when they wake up from their nap, or you can record it on TiVo. Renting a TV show twice a week from OnDemand on average costs $40 a month. Save yourself $230 over the course of a year to put into your cash reserve and buy a TiVo or DVR instead.

If you are buying movies new once a month, you could be spending on average $20 for regular DVDs and $35 for Blu-ray DVDs. If you are purchasing Blu-ray DVDs, you are spending $420 or more a year. You would save yourself $170 the first year you use a TiVo or DVR rather than purchase movies and more than $400 per year every year after to put into your cash reserve.

You can save money on all forms of visual entertainment every year by investing in a TiVo or DVR that will record any program on TV for your viewing pleasure. Every time you use your DVR or TiVo, you can put the money you would have spent at the theater, renting a movie, or purchasing a DVD in your cash reserve.