The first step I took on my journey to becoming debt-free was taking control of expenses. If I was going to get serious about paying down my credit card debt I needed to find cash. In other words, I had to identify and eliminate unnecessary recurring charges. My target? Cancel subscriptions I no longer needed.
Over the years I subscribed to various streaming services, apps, credit monitoring, as well as a host of other things. Some of these were necessary but others, not so so much. I printed out and reviewed all my bank statements for the prior 12 months to see what exactly was coming in and out. As a result, I learned I had a lot of subscriptions to apps and services that I no longer used. What a waste! It was time to cancel subscriptions and free up some income.
Cancel subscriptions to free up your income
I had several streaming services I no longer used or used infrequently. There was a credit monitoring service I signed up for many years prior and completely forgot about. I had a couple of apps I no longer used that billed annually. Finally, there was a recurring monthly charge for a car wash subscription from a state I had previously lived in. As you can see, those little charges, $5 here, $ 15 dollars there, quickly add up. When all was said and done, taking the time to identify and cancel unused subscriptions saved me about $85 per month. That’s $1,020 per year for things I never really used. More importantly, that was $1,020 I could use to pay down my debt. And I did.
The important lesson here is that many of us sign up for things but sometimes forget to cancel them. Do this enough and you end up having a good chunk of change disappear from your account every month. If you go through a similar exercise, be sure to put that freed up money to good use. For example, you could use the money to pay down debt, save for a rainy day, or beef up your emergency savings.
If you’re not too thrilled about scouring months or years of bank statements, you can leverage services like Truebill to help identify unused subscriptions. I personally haven’t used their service, but I’ve heard others have had success using them.