Are Subscription Costs Picking Your Pocket?

By Gary Wells, Sr.

I recently read a CNBC article stating that most people don’t know how many subscriptions they have and how much they are paying for them. I, for one, was in both groups, spurring me to action. To get started, I figured that consumer advocate Clark Howard’s website would have helpful tips on how to go about exploring the issue, and I was right.

A Clark Howard staff member had several articles on the subject. The one I found most useful provided suggestions from Howard on how to approach the issue (Johnson). He suggested:

1. Print out your credit card statement.

2. Go through it item by item.

3. Identify your subscriptions and how much they cost.

4. Cancel the ones you no longer use or decide are not worth the money.

Following these suggestions, I’m eliminating three subscriptions totaling $30 per month and contemplating dropping another one that costs $29 per month. I saved over $40 by switching a subscription from paying monthly to annually. If I drop the $29/month subscription, that and the other changes total over $750 per year. Not bad for a small investment of my time, and I’m in the minority. According to a recent survey by C+R Research, consumers spend an average of $133 per month more for subscriptions than they realized. Some of this was for subscriptions they forgot they had. Dropping those is a no-brainer.

By the way, I decided to do two other things. First, I’ve made an annual entry on my phone’s calendar to repeat my subscription analysis yearly to help me keep on the straight and narrow. Second, I’m sending the savings off to an investment account, figuring I didn’t miss it when I was wasting it; why not put it to work for me now?

June 17, 2023