AARP Hearing Center
In your first activity, you set financial goals and took a deep-dive into your finances to gain better insights into your spending habits.
Now we'll turn to subscriptions....since almost everyone has them! Have you ever signed up for a free trial of a service and forgotten to cancel before the paid subscription began? Or have you ever subscribed to a product or service that you once enjoyed but have stopped using over time? You’re far from alone.
Subscriptions can be convenient – but they can also be costly, particularly when you’re not using them enough to get your money’s worth. Americans on average have more than three subscriptions that they haven’t used in the last 30 days. The money wasted on unused subscriptions averages around $33 per month, 1 adding up to nearly $400 per year. Think about how that extra money could help you reach your CA$H Hacks goal!
Many of us are also prone to underestimating how much we’re spending. One study found that we tend to spend 2.5 times more than we thought we were spending on subscriptions.2
The second activity of the CA$H Hacks Challenge consists of 5 actions for you to take. Even if you commit to just 1 or 2 of these actions, you are making great progress!
1. Count your subscriptions
More than four in 10 Americans have forgotten about a subscription that they’re paying for.3 An annual subscription can be particularly easy to overlook. Go through your bank and credit card statements and write down every streaming platform, gym membership and other services you subscribe to. Or download an app that helps you track your subscriptions such as Subscription Stopper, Trim or Rocket Money. When you link one of these apps to your credit card or bank accounts, the app scours your transactions and identifies subscriptions. While most of these apps offer free account monitoring, some offer more advanced features, such as the ability to cancel subscriptions for you for a fee. Note that even if you only use the free service option, you are providing personal data about your spending habits, so it’s a good idea to check the company’s privacy policy.
Consider creating a subscription renewal calendar - research when your paid subscriptions will renew so you can re-evaluate whether you want to keep them before they come up for renewal. And many subscriptions allow you to cancel at any time and might even reimburse you at a pro-rated rate
2. Find free alternatives
You might be paying money for subscriptions that you could be enjoying for free. For example, instead of using a paid credit report service, you can get a free credit report every week at AnnualCreditReport.com. Or instead of paying for a costly gym membership, you could work out from home and take free exercise classes on YouTube.
