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When I decided to get serious about my finances, one of the first things I did was audit my subscriptions. I expected to find a few services I could cancel. What I actually found shocked me — I was paying for streaming services I hadn’t watched in months, a gym membership I wasn’t using, apps with “premium” upgrades I’d forgotten about, and trial subscriptions that had quietly converted to paid plans.
The total? Over $150 per month on subscriptions I wasn’t actively using. That’s $1,800 per year — vanishing from my account in small, forgettable increments that I never noticed because each individual charge seemed insignificant.
This is exactly how subscription models are designed to work. Small monthly charges fly under your awareness radar. You don’t miss the money because it’s taken automatically. And the friction of canceling feels like more effort than just letting it continue. Learning how to cut your monthly subscriptions was one of the easiest wins in my entire frugal living journey.
Why Subscription Spending Gets Out of Control
The average American spends over $200 per month on subscriptions — and many underestimate their actual spending by 50% or more. The reasons are psychological:
Small amounts feel insignificant. $9.99 here, $14.99 there — each charge seems trivial. But ten “trivial” subscriptions at $12 average each equals $120 per month, or $1,440 per year.
Auto-renewal removes decision points. When you had to physically write a check or hand over cash to continue a service, you naturally reconsidered whether it was worth it. Auto-renewal eliminates that moment of reflection.
Free trials create inertia. You sign up for a free trial intending to cancel before it converts. But life gets busy, you forget, and suddenly you’ve been paying for six months.
Subscription creep happens gradually. You don’t sign up for 15 subscriptions at once. You add them one at a time over months and years, each one feeling reasonable in isolation but adding up to a significant total.
How to Cut Your Monthly Subscriptions: 7 Steps
Step 1: Find Every Active Subscription
Before you can cut anything, you need a complete list of what you’re paying for. This requires checking multiple sources:
Review your bank and credit card statements. Go through the last three months of statements and highlight every recurring charge. As I explain in my guide on how to read your credit card statement, the transaction detail section reveals every automatic payment.
Check your email for receipts. Search your inbox for “subscription,” “renewal,” “receipt,” and “payment confirmation.” This catches subscriptions you might have forgotten about.
Review your phone’s app subscriptions. On iPhone, go to Settings > your name > Subscriptions. On Android, open Google Play > Payments & subscriptions. These often contain app upgrades you forgot you signed up for.
Check PayPal and other payment platforms. If you use PayPal, Venmo, or other payment services, review their recurring payment settings for subscriptions linked through those platforms.
Write everything down in a list with the service name, monthly cost, and billing date.
Step 2: Categorize by Necessity
Once you have your complete list, sort each subscription into three categories:
Essential: Services you use regularly and genuinely need. Your phone plan, internet service, and perhaps a primary streaming service you watch daily.
Nice to have: Services you use occasionally but could live without. A secondary streaming service you watch a few times per month, a magazine subscription, or a premium app feature.
Unnecessary: Services you rarely or never use. Forgotten trials, duplicate services, memberships you haven’t visited in months, and premium upgrades with no noticeable benefit over the free version.
Step 3: Cancel the Unnecessary Immediately
The fastest way to cut your monthly subscriptions is to cancel the ones you don’t use — today, not tomorrow.
Don’t deliberate on the “unnecessary” category — cancel them today. Not tomorrow, not next week, not “after I check one more time if I use it.” The longer you wait, the more likely inertia keeps you paying.
Most services can be canceled through their website or app settings. Some make it intentionally difficult — requiring phone calls or navigating confusing menus. Do it anyway. Even if canceling takes 15 minutes, that 15 minutes saves you $10 to $20 per month forever.
Step 4: Evaluate the “Nice to Have” Category
For each “nice to have” subscription, ask yourself: If I didn’t already have this, would I sign up for it today at this price?
If the answer is no, cancel it. If the answer is “maybe,” pause it for a month. Most streaming services and many other subscriptions allow you to pause rather than cancel. If you don’t miss it after 30 days, cancel permanently.
Step 5: Reduce What You Keep
For subscriptions you decide to keep, look for ways to reduce the cost:
Downgrade to a lower tier. Do you really need the premium plan, or does the basic version do everything you need? Many services offer 2 to 3 tiers, and the middle or bottom tier is often sufficient.
Switch to annual billing. Many subscriptions offer a discount (typically 15% to 30%) for paying annually instead of monthly. If you’re confident you’ll use the service all year, annual billing reduces the cost.
Share family plans. Streaming services, cloud storage, and some productivity apps offer family plans that split the cost across multiple users. Sharing with family members can cut your per-person cost by 50% to 75%.
Negotiate or ask for retention offers. When you call to cancel, many companies will offer a discounted rate to keep you. Cable, internet, and some subscription services regularly offer retention deals to customers who threaten to leave.
Step 6: Use a Dedicated Subscription Card
This is a trick I adopted early in my frugal living journey — and I mention it in my frugal living for beginners guide. I use a single dedicated virtual card for all my subscriptions. This creates one place where every recurring charge is visible, making it impossible for subscriptions to hide across multiple cards and accounts.
When it’s time for a subscription audit, I just review one card statement instead of combing through everything. It also makes canceling easier — if I want to kill a stubborn subscription, I can simply freeze or replace the card.
Step 7: Schedule Recurring Audits
Subscription creep is ongoing, so your audit should be too. Set a calendar reminder to review your subscriptions every 3 months. A 15-minute quarterly audit prevents the gradual accumulation that turns a few reasonable services into $200+ per month.
During each audit, ask: Am I still using this? Is it still worth this price? Has a better or cheaper alternative appeared? Could I downgrade or share the cost?
How Much Can You Actually Save?
The savings depend on how many subscriptions you’re carrying, but here’s what typical scenarios look like:
Canceling 3 unused streaming services at $15 each: $45/month ($540/year)
Downgrading 2 premium plans to basic: $15/month ($180/year)
Canceling a forgotten gym membership: $30/month ($360/year)
Removing 2 unused app subscriptions: $12/month ($144/year)
Total in this example: $102/month — $1,224/year.
That’s over $1,200 redirected to your emergency fund, debt payoff, or investments — from a single afternoon of canceling things you weren’t even using.
Alternatives to Paid Subscriptions
Another way to cut your monthly subscriptions is to replace paid services with free alternatives.
Before paying for a subscription, consider whether a free alternative meets your needs:
Streaming: Free ad-supported tiers on services like Tubi, Pluto TV, and Peacock. Your local library may also offer free streaming through apps like Kanopy and Hoopla.
Music: Free tiers of Spotify or YouTube Music with ads. Many libraries offer free access to music streaming services.
News: Most major news stories are covered by free sources. Your library likely provides free access to major newspapers and magazines through apps like Libby and PressReader.
Fitness: Free workout videos on YouTube. Outdoor running, bodyweight exercises, and community fitness groups cost nothing.
Cloud storage: Free tiers from Google Drive (15GB), iCloud (5GB), and Dropbox (2GB) are sufficient for most people before upgrading to paid plans.
Productivity apps: Free versions of tools like Notion, Trello, and Google Workspace handle most needs without premium upgrades.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I find subscriptions I’ve forgotten about?
Check three months of bank and credit card statements for recurring charges, search your email for “subscription,” “renewal,” or “receipt,” and review your phone’s subscription settings (Settings > Subscriptions on iPhone, Google Play > Payments on Android). A budgeting app like Mint or PocketGuard can also automatically identify recurring charges.
What if a subscription is hard to cancel?
Some services intentionally make cancellation difficult. If you can’t find a cancel option online, try calling customer service directly. In the US, the FTC has rules requiring companies to make cancellation as easy as sign-up. If all else fails, contact your bank to block future charges from that merchant.
Should I cancel all my subscriptions to save money?
No — the goal isn’t zero subscriptions. It’s eliminating subscriptions that don’t provide value proportional to their cost. A streaming service you watch daily for $15/month may be excellent value. A different service you watch once a month for $15 is not. Keep what you use and love, cut what you don’t.
How much do people typically save from a subscription audit?
Most people find $50 to $150 per month in subscriptions they can cancel or downgrade — that’s $600 to $1,800 per year. The savings are higher for people who haven’t audited their subscriptions before, as years of accumulated unused services tend to add up significantly.
Is it better to cancel subscriptions or negotiate lower prices?
Do both. Cancel what you don’t use, then negotiate better rates on what you keep. Many companies offer retention discounts of 10% to 30% when you indicate you want to cancel. Annual billing often saves 15% to 30% over monthly billing. Sharing family plans can cut costs by 50% or more.
The Bottom Line
Subscription spending is one of the sneakiest budget leaks because each charge feels small and forgettable. But collectively, unused and underused subscriptions drain hundreds or thousands of dollars per year from your finances.
Learning to cut your monthly subscriptions isn’t about deprivation — it’s about paying only for things that genuinely add value to your life. One afternoon of auditing can put $100+ per month back in your pocket permanently.
For the complete guide to spending less and living smarter, read my frugal living for beginners guide.
Toyin Onagoruwa is the founding editor of BrokeMeNot. With over five years of experience in personal finance writing and a background in financial services, he helps everyday people navigate credit cards, budgeting, and smart money management. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
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