On my original list of 150 things I wrote down to keep busy in early retirement, I had ‘watching new movies more often’ as a fun activity. I love movies – our whole family does – and we are certainly in a ‘golden age’ of big screen entertainment.

Related: Early Retirement ‘Not Bored List’

Before retiring, I expected I would watch about 30 new movies a year. That’s just a little more than once every two weeks. In my mind’s eye, I imagined these would be mostly $5 matinees on Thrifty Tuesdays. While everyone else was back at work, I’d be in a big, reclining, leather theater seat eating popcorn!

It turns out that hasn’t been exactly the case. Looking at the 29 movies I have seen over the last year, 22 of them have been in the theater, most have been in the evening, only 4 of them have been on Thrifty Tuesday, and 6 of them have been streamed at home on our big screen TV.

I suppose I should be concerned at how much more this is costing me than what I expected before retirement. Movies in our area average about $11 a ticket and the newest theaters also serve food. This means in addition to the ticket, I’m often forking out for an expensive meal instead of just popcorn.

The big financial trade off comes down to going to the theater or streaming at home. If we flipped the 22/6 balance, we would probably save as much as $400-$500 a year (16 x 2 people x $11 + $100 food). Since we already pay for cable TV, Amazon Prime, and Netflix, waiting until new movies are streaming at home shouldn’t be a problem. Yet, I love the experience of going out to the movie theater!

How do you balance seeing first run movies in the theater versus waiting until they are streaming at home?

Image Credit: Pixabay