Personal Finance

As prices have crept up, and the purchasing power of money has gone down, many consumers are re-evaluating their spending and making a tighter budget. One of the spending categories taking a hit is subscriptions.

With the subscription business model, customers sign up and pay to get access to a service or product for a period of time, rather than paying per product. This model might be used for products and services including gyms, magazines, TV and music streaming, software, or meal preparation boxes.

But before you hit cancel on that subscription, check if you’ve got the financial guidance you need. At New York Life, our financial professionals can help you with many aspects of your financial well-being.

Here are five ways to keep a check on your subscription spending:

1) Get organized

Regular monthly payments that go out of our accounts tend to be under less scrutiny than one-off payments. But now is a good time to keep track of all payments going in and out of your accounts. Start by making a list or spreadsheet of any regular subscription payments you make. Note the amount that you pay and the frequency of the payment. If you’ve signed up for a free trial but don’t intend to switch to the paid version, note the date that the free trial ends, and set a reminder to yourself to cancel the subscription trial.

2) What can you do without?

Is there something on your list of subscriptions that you could do without? This might be obvious – by checking through your accounts you might even find a subscription that you no longer use but had forgotten about. For each of your subscriptions, ask yourself, is it worth it? How often do I use it? For example, if you have a monthly magazine subscription but hardly ever read it, could you instead cancel the subscription and buy a copy of that same magazine once every few months?

3) Shop around

It might be a while since you compared prices for subscription services. Many of us tend to keep the same deals for months or years once we have signed up to something. See if you can get a better deal elsewhere, or bonuses that make it beneficial to switch. Even if you can’t, you’ll know you have the best price available. And if you do find a better deal elsewhere, you could ask your current subscription provider whether they can match it (to save you the time and hassle of switching). Look into whether there are special deals if you sign up together with someone else, or any family deals you might qualify for.

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