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How do you keep track of your subscriptions?
We recently had a big thread about all of the subscriptions we find valuable.
This is a follow-up to that: how do you keep track of and manage your subscriptions (if you do at all)?
I’d love to have a sort of one-stop subscription management tracker where I can toggle things on and off and it can email me when something is coming due soon, but I’ve yet to find something like that I love.
If anyone has any tips, tricks, or pointers, I’d love to hear them!
They show up on credit card bills? They send me emails? I guess that's no system.
For longer-term subscriptions like newspapers, I put a reminder in Google Calendar to consider cancelling them so they don't auto-renew.
I.. Uh. I have a spreadsheet for my finances. Part of it includes a list of subscriptions I have ongoing and how much they cost.
Nothing fancy.
There nothing wrong with using spreadsheet for middle-level or even hard-level complex operations.
Especially if you have a backups and manage history of editing somehow.
Same here. Debts, monthly common spendings, donations and subscriptions. I like to know how much money I have once all is paid so it makes sense to have a complete overview.
There are many free tools but none were flexible enough, so I chose spread sheets. Its not like those payments change that often that I need to update it often.
I do this as well, and they're all kept together so I always know exactly how much I'm spending on them at any one time.
I have two category groups in YNAB, annual subscriptions and monthly subscriptions. Each category has funding targets for when it is needed each month or what is needed to build up the total cost of an annual subscription over the course of a year.
Nice! I just started on YNAB last month and it has been a game changer for my wife and I. We've always been decent at controlling our spending decisions, but we've always struggled to make a budget and stick to it, so we'd end up blowing way more money than we realized on the little things.
The ynab interface and automatic tx importing just makes it so easy!
I also use YNAB and have a subscriptions category. I don't differentiate between monthly and annual though, I just treat everything like monthly in terms of funding it
Similarly, I have one category for fixed expenses (basically stuff I cannot reasonably stop paying, like my rent or my internet subscription) and one for cancellable subscriptions (e.g. various media subscriptions). Some are monthly, some are yearly, I don’t see the need to keep those apart, I just sort them so the monthlies are at the top of the group and the yearlies at the bottom.
I use this app. It lets you enter details about subscriptions and get notifications when recurring payments are about to be charged. It also gives you your aggregate monthly total spend. You have to enter, modify, and delete the entries manually (so it’s only reliable if you are diligent about keeping it up to date), but I find having this data consolidated once I enter it to be convenient. Granted, you could get most of this app’s functionality with a simple spreadsheet and your OS’s built-in reminders/calendar apps.
If I had any subscriptions, it would be a line item on my budget spreadsheet. Just don’t get into a feedback loop of a subscription service to keep track of subscriptions.
I used to use an app on Android called Subscriptions, but it looks like the author sold it and the new owners who introduced ads wants a $20/yr subscription to remove them. Yikes.
Rocket Money app is really good at listing out your subscriptions and and can even cancel them for you if you no longer want them.
I only have three:
If I were to add something I'd just add it to the list and keep track, but I don't really have much in that way. Oh, and I have a couple $10-20 yearly subscriptions (Texty for MacOS, a standalone Google Messages for Web client, because I use an Android phone and a MacBook; Nomorobo robocall blocker), but I get notifications at least a month out on those.
Curious about Google messages for web client. Doesn't google already have a web app for it (https://messages.android.com/)?
Can you share what additional features Texty offers?
While Texty basically operates as a wrapper for the web client, it's got keyboard shortcuts, the ability to set the text size (I prefer it small), and better OS-based notification handling. I also like having a standalone app I can Command-Tab to, rather than a browser tab or window I might accidentally close (it's the same reason I use the desktop app for Facebook Messenger).
Ahh ok.
I've been recently experimenting with Edge on my work laptop (can't use firefox, as org policies don't allow account syncing on Firefox, but do on edge. Weird, I know). Edge has a vertical tool bar to ease out access for stuff like this and it's become a favourite of mine. It's basically a better version of Side View from Firefox's pilot program.
To Do List set to pop up on renewal dates for each sub. Also mark them on google calendar (yeah i know google actually has some useful apps imho)
I look at my credit card app, decide I don't need something anymore, and go and cancel it.
I have a digital note that I have my budget on. My subscriptions and renewal dates are on them. I manually track my spending on that budget note, so it reminds me whenever I look at it.
They are mostly donations in our case. My wife has kept a spreadsheet for our cash flow, but we have recently upgraded to HomeBank on a shared drive and some scripts to download and process bank statements.
I use the tools my bank provides.
For credit cards, the first tool is emails and push notifications anytime an online or phone purchase is made at any amount of money.
The second tool is my bank shows which websites or businesses have my card information stored. Honestly not sure how they do it, but I can see repeating (subscription) payments on each card.
A similar tool I use is push/email notifications anytime one of my accounts sends a direct deposit. This is useful for things like insurance or energy bills. Not really a subscription, but I know when it's paid each month.
I try to only subscribe to stuff through the Apple App Store, that way all subscriptions are listed in the App Store. Also great for trials because you can subscribe for a free trial, then cancel it immediately and still have access for the trial period.
Both this and the other thread have made me realize that I need to keep better track of my subscriptions. 😅 I think I'll start with a Google Sheet and go through all of the bills on my credit card statement (and then proceed to have a mental breakdown).
I keep track of my subscriptions and all other aspects of my financials using Actual Budget, where I've hand-entered every financial transaction I've ever made since I was a teenager 🙌 https://actualbudget.org/