How many subscriptions does your household have going right now?
When most of us think about subscriptions, we go straight to Netflix, Prime, maybe an online newspaper or magazine. But if you actually stop and count them, there are almost always more lurking than you’d expect, and they add up quickly.
Subscription creep is a real thing. It’s that slow, quiet climb in the number of services you’ve signed up to without really noticing.
Why it happens
The companies offering subscriptions know exactly what they’re doing. They’ve done the research and they know they can reel people in with phrases like “free trial” and “save time”, along with those psychologically small payments ($9.99 a month, or “less than the price of your daily coffee”).
They’re banking on you being too flat out to notice gradual price increases, or to remember to cancel that free trial before it flips over to a paid service. Then there’s the cheeky option to pay more to go ad-free. What’s with that?
They also know you’re unlikely to track what other people in the household have signed up to, and they won’t be tapping you on the shoulder to let you know you’re paying for duplicates of the same service.
The real cost
Forgotten subscriptions quietly chip away at your disposable income and can skew your financial picture by hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year. That has a real impact on lifestyle. That money could be helping you pay your mortgage down faster, giving you a bit more breathing room in the household budget, or even affecting your borrowing power if you’re applying for finance or renegotiating an existing loan.
How to run a subscription audit
If you’re wondering where the money is disappearing to, or how many services you’re actually paying for, start with an audit of everything the household has signed up to. Here’s how to work through it.
Get everyone together and list the services each person is subscribed to. Check your paper trail, including bank records, email accounts, digital wallets and credit card statements, for recurring payments you might have missed. Build a master list capturing who has what, how often they actually use it, the cost and frequency, and the renewal date. Identify duplicates and unused services and cancel them on the spot. Review any free trials and cancel the ones you don’t plan to keep. Switch automatic renewals to manual renewal where you can, so you’re consciously choosing to keep each service each year. Diarise an annual audit and go through the same process again next year.
Common subscriptions worth checking
To get you started, here are some of the usual suspects worth looking at:
- Gym memberships
- Fitness apps
- Online newspapers, magazines and books
- Delivery services
- Gaming passes
- YouTube
- Netflix
- Kayo
- Disney+
- Stan
- Apple TV
- Canva
- Mobile phone plans
- Spotify
- Software licences and cloud storage
- Prepared meal services
Add anything else your household has picked up along the way.
Put the savings to work
Once you’ve cleared out the unused subscriptions, the trick is to actually redirect the savings somewhere useful. If it just melts back into the household spend, you’re no better off. Send it towards paying down debt, building an emergency buffer, or investing for the future.
A chat with your financial adviser or accountant can help you build (or revise) your budget and work out the best home for the cash you free up. This kind of quiet housekeeping is exactly the sort of thing we cover with clients across Newcastle and the Hunter as part of our financial planning and wealth creation conversations.
Not all subscriptions are unnecessary, of course. Plenty are genuinely useful and convenient. Only you can decide which ones are earning their keep, and which ones can quietly go.
Talk to Virtuous Wealth
If you’d like a hand putting the savings from your subscription audit to good use, we’d love to have a chat. Get in touch with our Newcastle team to book a no-obligation conversation.
This article provides general information only and does not take into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on any information, you should consider its appropriateness, having regard to your own circumstances, and seek personal financial advice from a licensed adviser.
