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The other day, I pulled up Disney+ to throw on some Bluey for my kids when a notification popped up on the screen. Our bundle was going from $29.99 a month to $32.99.

Thirty-two dollars and 99 cents. A month. For a streaming service.

I was so outraged, I almost dropped the remote.

And yes, I realize that we were already paying $29.99, and that this was just a $3 increase. I can afford three dollars. I have, on many occasions, spent three dollars on a coffee I didn't finish. It's not about the $3.

But more than $30 a month for a streaming service? That felt insane. Something in me snapped.

So I sat down at my computer, pulled up everything we pay for, and prepared to be furious at Disney.

That's when I noticed something that made absolutely no sense at all...

I Was Mad at the Wrong Company

Of course, it didn't take long to remember that our $32.99 doesn't buy one streaming service. It buys three. There's Disney+, which delivers Bluey and Spidey and His Amazing Friends to two boys who consider them a basic human right. Then there's Hulu, which carries dozens of old and current series across networks. Third is ESPN, which my husband watches.

Even with the price increase to $32.99, that bundle works out to about $11 a service, and we use all of them frequently. Canceling it would qualify as a domestic emergency, and I'd be the one responsible.

"Fine," I huffed. "Disney can stay."

I begrudgingly continued down the list of services we subscribe to until I reached the P's — Paramount and Peacock. I knew that Paramount was the boys' main supply for PAW Patrol and a few other TV shows throughout the year, and Peacock gave us access to... old Brooklyn Nine-Nine reruns, and not much else. To be honest, no one has opened either app for at least a month or two.

The price for these two services I barely think about? $19.99 a month for Peacock and $13.99 for Paramount+, for a total of $33.98.

That's more than the bundle I was so angry about.

I'd spent my evening preparing to fight the one company in this story that was earning its money, while paying two others nearly $34 a month to sit there unopened.

Why $3 Felt Like So Much More

In my defense, Disney didn't make me angry all by itself. It had plenty of help.

Netflix raised its prices in March. Apple TV raised its price in August. Disney announced this latest round in September. Over the past 18 months, Disney+, Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, Apple TV, HBO Max, and Paramount+ have all raised what they charge.

It's relentless, and it works because no single increase seems worth the trouble of fighting. So why did this one get to me?

Here's what stings: Peacock raised our plan by $3 last year, then by another $3 this year. That's twice what Disney just asked for, and I didn't snap over either one. By the time the second increase reached our bill, no one in my house was even watching. But nobody interrupted Bluey to tell me about it.

The difference is the number in my head. I expect a streaming service to cost somewhere between $12 and $20 a month. A bill for $16.99 instead of $13.99 didn't blow my mind, because it was right where I expected it to be. So was $19.99. But $32.99 was nowhere near that range.

That's price anchoring at work. Once you have a number in your head for what something should cost, you judge each new price against that number instead of against what you're actually getting. Anything inside my range got a pass, and anything outside it looked outrageous.

My anchor had it exactly backward. It sounded the alarm on an $11-a-service bundle we use all the time, and it waved through $19.99 for a service no one was watching.

The Bill You Stopped Noticing

That's the trap with recurring charges. When a bill looks normal, you never stop to ask what it's buying. You made that decision once, and it doesn't expire on its own, so a choice you made years ago keeps billing you every month.

I wasn't asking whether we could afford Peacock and Paramount+. We can. The better question was whether I'd sign up for them today at these prices, and once I put it that way, the answer took about four seconds.

So they're gone. That's $33.98 a month, or about $408 a year, against the extra $36 a year Disney will now collect.

Netflix may be next. The shows we watch won't have new seasons out for a year or so, and I can't think of a good reason to pay every month to wait. We'll give it another month and decide. If something we love comes back, we can resubscribe, watch it, and leave again, probably at a higher price, because of course.

If a price increase has you ready to cancel something, go ahead and let the anger get you to the computer. Just don't stop at the company that made you mad. Put every subscription side by side, forget what feels like a normal price, and look at what each one actually gets you, starting with the ones you've stopped opening.

As for Disney, it'll get its extra $3. My boys will keep Bluey, my husband will keep ESPN, and I'll get to keep watching Olivia Benson save the world one SVU case at a time.

Honestly, it might be the best $36 we spend all year.

...But don't tell Disney. They'll just raise the price.