Audit your subscriptions in 30 minutes (most people find something)

Recurring charges are built to be forgotten. A free trial turns paid, a streaming service you watched for one show keeps billing, an app renews every year. A single sweep usually finds money you can reclaim.

The 30-minute sweep

1. Pull three months of statements from every card and bank account you use. Three months catches monthly and quarterly charges.
2. Highlight anything recurring. Same merchant, similar amount, repeated. Include annual ones by checking last year's statements for the month you're in.
3. Check app stores. Apple (Settings, your name, Subscriptions) and Google Play (Payments and subscriptions) list every active subscription in one place.
4. Search your email for "receipt," "subscription," "renewal," and "trial."
5. Sort into three piles: use weekly (keep), use occasionally (pause or downgrade), forgot about (cancel today).

Cancelling well

• Cancel before the renewal date, and screenshot the confirmation.
• Many services let you pause instead of cancel, or offer a cheaper tier. Check before you cancel if you'd miss it.
• For services you want back later, you can resubscribe in seconds, so cancelling costs you little.

Keep it from creeping back

Set a calendar reminder every quarter for a ten-minute recheck. Pay for trials with a card you can freeze, or note the end date the moment you start one.

Add up what you freed, then use our 50/30/20 budget guide to point it at savings.

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