Subscriptions

  The ‘Leaky’ Money Audit: What’s Your Subscription Style? Are forgotten free trials and sneaky subscriptions draining your bank account? Take our quiz to find your money personality!   Question 1 of 8 A new, must-have streaming service launches with a 30-day free trial. What’s your first move? Add a calendar reminder for day 29 to decide if it’s worth keeping. Sounds cool! I’ll sign up and see if I end up using it. Free is for me! Signing up immediately, I can always cancel later… maybe. If a friend says it’s essential, I’ll sign up and probably keep it forever. You get an email receipt for a subscription you don’t recognize. You… Immediately log in, investigate, and cancel it if I’m not using it. Huh, weird. I’ll make a mental note to look into that later when I have time. Probably from a free trial I forgot about. Oops! I’ll try to remember to cancel next month. Assume it’s something I wanted. If it’s not a huge amount, I’ll just let it go. How do you feel about your monthly bank or credit card statement? I review it line by line, comparing it against my budget. I give it a quick scan for huge, fraudulent-looking charges. Anxiety. I prefer not to look too closely, to be honest. I just check the total balance. As long as I can cover it, I’m good. Next Question → A friend asks for a recommendation for a good budgeting app. You say: I’ve tried three! Here’s a detailed pro/con list for each one. I downloaded one once but never really got into it. My bank’s app is probably fine? Budgeting app? Doesn’t that take the fun out of spending? I don’t use one. I just have a general sense of what I can spend. Your phone’s home screen is filled with apps. How many are for services you pay for monthly? Exactly three. And I use them all daily. A handful? Some for streaming, some for news… I’d have to count. So many! Photo editors, fitness apps… most were free trials I’m now paying for. The ones I use are in a folder. The rest… who knows? I don’t delete anything. When you sign up for a new service, you typically use… A unique, complex password stored in my password manager. One of a few trusted passwords I rotate between. ‘Sign in with Google/Facebook.’ It’s just so much faster! The same password for most things. It’s just easier to remember. Next Question → What’s your philosophy on ‘premium’ features for an app you use for free? I’ll upgrade only if the feature solves a specific, recurring problem for me. If I get annoyed enough by the ads or limitations, I might upgrade on a whim. The ‘one-time’ introductory offer is too good to pass up! I’ll probably upgrade. If I like the free version, I’ll happily pay to support the developers. It’s ‘Subscription Spring Cleaning’ time! How do you approach it? What cleaning? I do this every month. My subscriptions are already optimized. I’ll scroll my bank statement and cancel one or two things I haven’t used. I use a service that finds and cancels subscriptions for me. It’s too overwhelming! I don’t really do this. The services I pay for are ones I’ve decided are valuable. See My Result →   Your Result     Take Quiz Again