Pay for Next Years Holiday by Canceling Unnecessary Subscriptions…

If you’re a film lover or TV show binger, then you’re probably getting your money’s worth from a Netflix subscription. But if you’re not, then unsubscribing from a platform you barely use could save you enough money to go on holiday.

It can be easy to lose track of what you have subscribed to and where those £5 transactions are going from your account every month. Subscriptions like Netflix and Spotify may not seem like a big expense at the time, but in the space of a year those £5.99 monthly costs add up.

It might be good practice to go through your transactions once or twice a year to see where you could save some money on unnecessary subscriptions.

To put it into perspective, this is what some popular subscriptions could add up to in the space of a year:

It’s Not Just You

According to Finder.com

• Brits spend more than £2 billion on subscription services per year
• The average person spends £60 per year on subscriptions
• 1 in 4 Brits are signed up to a subscription box

So basically, that’s a lot of money coming out of our accounts to pay for subscriptions. And I’m pretty sure there are a few we don’t use or don’t really need. Ending these subscriptions is a great way to save yourself some money.

3 Steps to Subscription Savings

Step 1: Work out what subscriptions you’re paying for…

Let’s start by making a list. Go through your bank transactions for the last couple of months and see what is coming out of your account on a regular basis. Write all of these down, and how much they are. You may be signed up to things you didn’t even realize, this is often the case when forgetting to cancel a free trial.

Step 2: Start canceling those unnecessary payments

Now you have your list of subscriptions, you should decide if you think they are worth the money or not. If it is something you use regularly there’s no harm in keeping it. But if for example you are signed up to a gym that you visit once a month, it might be worth scrapping that unnecessary subscription and saving the money.

Ways to cancel:

• Most subscription services offer easy ways to end your membership/close your account via their website
• Cancel a direct debit via your online banking
• If you are subscribed to something via an app, you may have to cancel the subsciption through your AppleID (on iPhone)

Step 3: Get into a good habit

Getting rid of those unnecessary subscriptions is the easy bit, but getting into the habit of checking them regularly and deciding if you still need them might take a bit more thought and effort. Something that might be of good use to you right now, might not be in a year or twos time. It could be a good idea to set a date in your calendar for 2022 to go through this process again… especially if you’re someone that forgets to cancel their free trials.

It’s worth considering the fact that the money you spent on those subscriptions could be put towards your savings. If you didn’t miss the money coming out of your account for an unnecessary subscription, you wouldn’t miss it if it were going directly into your savings pot. Why not set up a monthly direct debit from your current account into your savings.