While subscription services are useful, they can add up quickly.
You can find a subscription service for nearly anything in your life. There are subscription boxes for food, clothing, and health, to unlimited movies, television, and music. Even your pets can receive new treats and toys each month through subscription boxes.
It can be easy to forget about these auto-pay subscription services, since most of these services take the money directly out of your account. Subscriptions can cost you a sizeable chunk of your income each month, but there are easy ways to effectively save.
1. Pay upfront
A lot of subscription services will allow you to pay a full year’s subscription upfront. Even insurance companies will sometimes allow you to pay semi-annually instead of monthly. Although a large amount comes out of your account, it only happens once, so you don’t have to worry about paying smaller amounts monthly. This gives you more breathing room, and gives you time to prepare for big expenses in the future.
2. Keep track of your subscriptions
One of the most common ways to lose money from subscriptions is to lose track of what you’re subscribed to. Whether it’s just a note on your phone or computer, or if you go through your bank statements, keep track of the services in which you are paying – you might find you don’t really need or want to keep paying for that service.
3. Use one card to pay for your subscriptions
Using the same card to pay for all of your subscription services makes it easy to track where your money is going. All of your charges go in one statement at the end of the month, and you can clearly see what subscriptions you have active. Plus, when you use your Central Bank Debit or Credit Card for your subscriptions, enjoy services like money manager to identify what charges are for subscriptions, to budget even easier!
4. Find free alternatives to your subscriptions
If you like the products a subscription service offers, there may be workarounds to help you with the price. Some meal-planning subscriptions will post their recipes free on their website. Libraries are also a great alternative to a subscription service. You can find more than just paper books – many of them offer audiobooks, and even movies and television shows. Plus, supporting your local library helps support your community as a whole!
5. Prioritize what you need, get rid of what you don’t
While novelty subscription boxes are fun, some of them might not be necessary. Unsubscribe from services you find yourself not using very often. It doesn’t mean that the service is gone forever; you can always re-subscribe if you want to try it again. By cutting out unnecessary subscriptions, you’ll find yourself saving more than you originally expected.
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