With more subscriptions that we know what to do with, here's what you've got to do to stay on top of them
Back in the day most of us had a handful of subscriptions for things like our phone bills, newspapers or magazines.
Now, we’ve got more subscriptions than sprinkles on fairy bread.
There’s subscriptions for TV, music, video games, gyms, fitness apps, dating apps.
Not to mention groceries, ride-sharing, sleep-trackers, cloud storage, toilet paper, skincare, and adult colouring books too. Sheesh!
With that many subscriptions coming out of our bank accounts, keeping track of all these subscriptions is harder than trying to do trigonometry in your head.
Which probably explains why the average Australian is spending $57 per month on subscriptions, which is almost $700 a year!
Luckily, there are some nifty ways to beat the subscription providers at their own game, and avoid getting caught in the subscription trap.
If you’re signing up for a free trial or starting a subscription that you know you’ll only use for a short period of time, make it a habit to put a reminder in your calendar to cancel it.
But the key is putting this in your calendar AS SOON AS YOU SIGN UP. Sorry for screaming - but we don’t want you to forget and accidentally keep spending on a subscription you’re not using.
Let’s be real. You’re probably not actually watching Netflix, Stan, Kayo, and Disney+ every single month, right?
Most of these on-demand video platforms let you cancel monthly without any exit fees.
So if you know you’re hardcore bingeing Breaking Bad for the next month, you probably just need the one subscription platform for that time.
It may be a little tedious to flick your subscriptions on and off, but it could save you hundreds of dollars in just a year. So really, it’s a bargain!
You know how much your daily coffees and office sushi runs cost you because you see the price pop up each time you tap to pay.
But recurring payments like subscriptions, are usually direct debits, and therefore more of an invisible expense - so keeping track of them is harder.
You need to be able to see these payments regularly to make informed decisions about them, and adjust your budget as you need.
The Flux Budgeting Tool lets you see all your recurring payments in one spot.
Once you connect your bank accounts, it picks up on which of your transactions are recurring, and lists them so that you can see when they’re coming up.
That way, you can keep an eye on what payments are about to hit your bank account, and the amount too.
Often subscriptions can go up in price quietly, and it’s easy to miss these price changes without the right tools or systems in place.
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