Hunting down forgotten subscriptions
We've talked about the envelope, we've talked about the fry sauce line, we've talked about the copay that got charged twice. Tonight I'd like to go after a different sort of leak, and this one hides better than groceries ever could. Subscriptions.
A subscription is a peculiar thing. You sign up for it on purpose, usually for a good reason, and then your life moves along and the charge just... keeps going. Nobody sends you a note saying "hey, do you still want this?" It quietly takes its little bite out of the account every month — same day, same amount — and because it's the same every time, your eye slides right past it on the statement. That's precisely how it hides. Boring and consistent is exactly how a thing disappears in plain sight.
Let me tell you the story I've been saving for tonight, because it's the same idea, only a different kind of charge. A while back I was looking at a bank statement and noticed a copay from a doctor's visit had gone through twice. Twelve dollars, same date, same office, right there twice in a row. Now, twelve dollars is not going to sink anybody. That's exactly why most people let it go. But I've never been able to, not since that very first legal pad, so I called the billing office. They said it looked fine on their end. I called again. Still fine. On the third call I finally reached somebody who actually pulled up the transaction instead of just glancing at a screen, and sure enough, it had run through their system twice by mistake. They reversed it. It took three calls and probably forty-five minutes of my life I won't get back, but I count that one, because twelve dollars is twelve dollars, and it adds up faster than the fun money ever does.
Subscriptions work on the same principle, just slower and sneakier. So this is the plan for tonight.
Get every statement in front of you
Your bank account, and any credit card you use regularly. Go back three full months, not one. One month isn't enough, because some things bill quarterly or every six months, and you'll miss them entirely if you only look at January.
Go line by line, out loud if you have to
I mean it. Read each charge and ask yourself: do I know exactly what this is, and am I still using it? Not "probably" — know. If you have to squint at the name on the statement to guess what it even is, that's your first flag right there.
Streaming services are the obvious one these days — nearly everybody's got two or three they forgot they added. But don't stop there. Look for:
- App store charges, little ones, $2.99 here and $4.99 there
- Any "free trial" you signed up for and never went back to cancel
- Warranty or protection plans on things you don't own anymore
- Gym or class memberships you paused and never actually canceled
- Cloud storage you upgraded for one project two years ago
- Anything billing annually, because those are the easiest to forget, since you only see them once a year
Circle the ones you're not sure about
Don't cancel yet. Just circle it. You're building a list first.
Then call or click, whichever it takes
Some of these you can cancel online in thirty seconds. Others, on purpose, make it a whole ordeal — you have to call, sit on hold, and talk to somebody trained to talk you out of it. That's by design and it's aggravating, but don't let the hassle be the reason you keep paying for something you don't use. Write down the date you canceled, and get a confirmation number or a screenshot if they'll give you one, because I have had companies "find no record" of my cancellation before, and that's a whole different phone call you don't want to make twice.
Add up what you found
This is the part that gets people. It's rarely one big charge. It's four or five small ones that each feel too small to bother with, and together they're forty or fifty dollars a month you had no idea was leaving. Oh my heck, some of you are going to find more than that.
Now, I'll say the same thing here that I said about the copay — this is exactly why I don't think an app that only shows you what you spent is enough. It'll show you the fifty dollars went out. It won't make you stop and ask whether it should have. You have to actually sit down and read the thing, on paper, with your own eyes, the same way I did at that kitchen table all those years ago. The looking is the whole job.
One more thing. If you find a subscription you genuinely love and use every week, leave it be. This isn't about cutting everything down to nothing. It's about making sure every charge is one you'd choose again today, not one that's simply still there out of habit.
Before next time
Pull three months of statements and find at least one subscription you forgot you had. Cancel it if you don't want it, and bring the number to class so we can add it to what everybody else found.