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Financial spring cleaning: 5 steps to cutting unwanted subscriptions

Maxine McCreadie
Maxine McCreadie

4th March 2022

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Sometimes it can feel like subscription services are taking over our lives. Whether it’s a gym membership, a subscription to your favourite magazine, or juggling multiple streaming platforms, many of us pay through the nose for monthly services.

While services like Netflix offer convenience and entertainment on demand, the trouble with subscription services is that there are just so many of them now. It can be hard to keep track of what you’re paying for, how much you owe, and when each payment comes out of your bank.

This confusion contributes to unused subscription syndrome – the feeling that you’re paying over the odds for subscriptions you don’t use. Well no more; in the first of our Financial Spring Cleaning series, we give you five simple steps to cut your unwanted subscriptions and save money.

 

1. Find out what’s going on

 

The first rule in any form of financial spring cleaning is to find out the lay of the land as things stand right now. That means auditing your bank account.

Your subscriptions will come out of your bank account directly, usually once a month. In most banking apps there is a ‘direct debit’ section where you can find a list of your regular payments. This is most beneficial for monthly or bi-monthly payments.

There are payments that count as subscriptions that won’t necessarily show up in this section. Annual payments like car insurance, or travel insurance that auto-renews, should be added to the list so that you have an overview of every subscription you’re spending money on.

 

2. Total up how much you spend on subscriptions

 

Once you’ve audited your bank account – or bank accounts – and have a full list of the regular payments you’re making, it’s time to get out your calculator.

A key part of unpaid subscription syndrome is ignorance – we don’t always remember exactly what we’re spending our money on, or how much subscriptions are costing us on a monthly or yearly basis.

If you have a mix of monthly and yearly subscriptions, divide the annual payments by the 12 months of the year to get an exact monthly total. The chances are this number might shock you, but that’s what drives you to take action.

 

3. Rank your subscriptions in order of usage

 

It’s amazing how quickly subscriptions can gobble up your monthly budget, and how often you find your money being silently drained by services that you don’t even use.

Streaming services may be the best example of this. You might be paying for multiple paid platforms at the same time: Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and Disney Plus, for example. That’s before taking into account established cable platforms like Sky or Virgin.

There’s a lot of overlap with these platforms – you could probably cut your streaming subscriptions in half and still keep up with 95% of your favourite shows.

So that’s the approach you should take with all of your subscriptions. Take the list of subscriptions you made previously, and rank them all in order of usage. You’ll quickly realise how much money you’re spending on services you don’t get any value from.

 

4. Cut the deadwood – and be ruthless

 

This is the point where you may start making a case in your mind for the subscriptions you were thinking of cutting.

What if tomorrow’s the day where you finally take the notion to go to the gym for the first time in months? Or this is the month where insurance for your mobile phone finally comes in handy?

When it comes to cutting out unwanted subscriptions, there are two things it’s important to keep in mind:

  1. If you’re not using it, you shouldn’t be paying for it. 
  2. If you aren’t using it now, how likely are you to use it later?

 

So keep these in mind and be ruthless. Any subscriptions at or near the bottom of your list should be cut. You can do this by dealing with the provider directly, or most banking apps have a function that lets you cancel subscriptions at the click of a button.

 

5. Use technology to manage the subscriptions you keep

 

Unloved subscriptions draining your finances is now such a common problem that there are several apps and technologies designed specifically to help you track and manage your monthly or yearly payments.

Apps like TrueBill, Mint, and Track My Subs all have features that will allow you to keep on top of the subscriptions.

You can add all your payments to one platform and get instant visibility of what’s leaving your account and when, split your subscriptions into categories like entertainment, fitness, and business, and even cancel unwanted subscriptions straight from the app.

Maxine McCreadie
Maxine McCreadie

Maxine is an experienced writer, specialising in personal insolvency. With a wealth of experience in the finance industry, she has written extensively on the subject of Individual Voluntary Arrangements, Protected Trust Deed's, and various other debt solutions.

How we reviewed this article:

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Our debt experts continually monitor the personal finance and debt industry, and we update our articles when new information becomes available.

Current Version

March 4 2022

Written by
Maxine McCreadie

Edited by
Ben McCormack

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