I went through my credit card statements looking for recurring charges. Want to know what I found?
- Amazon Prime (in regular use)
- Spotify (also in regular use)
- Zoom (not as regular these days, maybe I can downgrade)
- Adobe Creative Suite (so expensive, but necessary)
- A meditation app I wanted for my yoga class (but didn’t like)
- A streaming theatre service I wanted to watch over the holidays in 2024 (then completely ignored from January)
- Cloud storage I signed up for temporarily and forgot about (oops)
- A language app with a “free trial” that turned into a monthly charge (urgh!)
- Some software that I needed for one client project a long while back (completely unexpected because I though I’d cancelled it)
This is normal, by the way. Most of us sign up for things with good intentions, use them for a while, then forget about them. The services keep charging us because that’s how subscription models work. And we aren’t always checking line items on our account statements. (If I were business savvy, I’d make Ending Note a subscription.)
But imagine your family trying to figure out which of these charges are important and which ones can be cancelled. Is that $15 monthly charge for essential software or for a language learning app you abandoned after two weeks? They won’t know unless you tell them.
Going through your subscriptions regularly is good financial hygiene. Documenting what you’re paying for and why is also part of estate planning. It helps your family make informed decisions about what to keep and what to cancel.
A quick subscription audit is a one-two punch!
Plus, you might find some money you didn’t know you were spending. When I cancelled subscriptions I wasn’t using I saved 4000 yen a month that I can now spend on more important things.
Like good meditation apps or conbini fried chicken.
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