Money Saving Tips in Boston and Beyond

*Every Monday throughout 2014 I will be sharing Money Savings Tips to help stick to and expand your budget!

It’s summer and I don’t know about you but there is nothing good on TV, especially since I’ve ditched cable. I tend to catch up with movies in the summer, but don’t want to spend a lot anything on movie rentals. Here’s a few ways to watch movies for free (and legally).

1. The Library: Head to your local (or college) library for movies and borrow them for free. If you have a library card, you don’t have to head to the library thanks to Hoopla where you can stream movies right from your laptop for free with your library card.

2. Redbox Promo Codes: I love Redbox and it’s a great way to rent popular movies for cheap. Even better, look for promo codes to get movie rentals for free. You still need to swipe your credit card, but you won’t be charged if you return on time. Also, promo codes are per credit card and not per person, so if you have three credit cards, you can receive three movies with that promo code. Here’s a few to get you started and don’t forget to follow me on Twitter because I share them often, but they are usually only available for a short period of time!

3. Amazon Prime: If you are an Amazon Prime member, you can stream a lot of movies for free. You can sign up for a free 30-day Amazon trial, although you may find it more worth while near Christmas for the free 2-day shipping perk. (Amazon Prime is $99 a year if you’d rather but there are discounts for students and moms.)

Also, if you are an Amazon Prime member, there’s a new feature where you can decide to forgo 2-day shipping for a $1 Amazon Movie Credit. You should see the option when you check out.

4. YouTube Videos: A lot of old movies that are available for free streaming on Netflix are actually free on YouTube and are great quality! I’ve watched a few full movies on YouTube recently although they were older/classics. However, I found more free (good) movies on YouTube compared to Hulu Movies where I didn’t hear of most of them.

5. Through Cable: It really bothered me having an even number of tips, so, if you are paying for a fancy cable package, I’d recommend using your DVR to record some favorite movies when you can watch them anytime. (I miss doing that.) In addition to taping them or watching them live, you can stream movies on your laptop. I know for Xfinity, you just need a cable password to access a lot of free movies and TV shows and I believe other cable providers are similar.

If you do decide to stream movies online from your laptop, you can hook your laptop up to the TV with a HDMI cable for a few bucks. I love streaming movies and TV shows on my laptop and watching it on my TV, makes me feel like I have cable 🙂

Also, please be careful when streaming movies online. If you haven’t heard of a free movie service or website and it needs to download something first, please think twice. It is much more expensive to fix or replace your computer from a virus than paying a few bucks for a movie.

Do you know of any other free (and legal) ways to watch and stream movies online!? I would love to know if I am missing out on anything awesome!

To find more Money Saving Tips from Boston On Budget, please head here.

*This post contains a few affiliate links from Amazon. Please see my disclosure policy here.