Cancel Monthly, Yearly Subscriptions: Save Hundreds to Thousands of Dollars!

I’m coming up on my one year anniversary of first signing up for Amazon Prime. Thus far I’ve been fairly happy with the service as I feel like I got more from the subscription than I ever intended. FYI, my entire interest in joining was so that I could get two day shipping on Amazon Prime purchases which has been really nice. Of course, the past handful of months has been rough so we haven’t been purchasing nearly as much from Amazon which means the original purpose of us having the service isn’t being fulfilled.

Granted, there are other benefits to Amazon Prime, such as access to streaming movies, access to millions of songs (I don’t really use that), hundreds of thousands of free ebooks, and more. There really is a lot if you choose to use all that’s available. But, like I said, the original purpose of the service isn’t being utilized as intended.

Furthermore, streaming movies–the second biggest use of Amazon Prime for us–isn’t quite as good as it used to be, especially since they’re now really focused on charging for the most recent season of television shows… that drives me nuts. Besides, we also have Netflix which tends to be better, in my opinion.

So, the long-winded conclusion I’m coming to is that I’m considering ditching my Amazon Prime membership. Yes, it’s not that expensive–currently priced at $99 a year–but that’s still nearly $100 I can spend another way.

Television Entertainment Services

I was also considering our other television subscriptions. Since we don’t have cable or satellite (just internet) we wound up not only with Amazon Prime for tv shows but with Netflix AND Hulu Plus. Each of these costs roughly $8-10 per month! Add them up and that’s starting to look like a cable tv subscription. 😉 As such, I’m thinking about removing Netflix, though, my wife still insists we keep Hulu Plus. Personally, I like Hulu Plus the least but it’s the only way to get relatively up-to-date access to the few television shows we watch.

Credit Monitoring Services

A while back I also signed up for Equifax credit monitoring due to some potential family credit fraud problems. This was purely proactive on our part but it does cost about $30 each month for the service. I’m told if I call and cancel they’ll possibly drop my costs which I still need to do. Either way I’m wondering if we still honestly need the service so it’s still on the short list to go away.

Food Services

There are other subscription services that we have which are much larger. One big one is our Thrive Life foods. Thus far we’ve been quite happy with what we’re getting but, to be honest, it is a significant monthly expense and one that we don’t NEED. Of course, being a prepper AND being relatively busy means that Thrive foods has been a good choice but if “push comes to shove” it will go too.

Magazine Subscriptions

Another expense that I still don’t get why people pay for is magazine subscriptions. Granted, I’m sure there are specialty magazines (e.g., Guns & Ammo) that the library probably won’t stock but if you’re paying for common magazines it’s time to stop. I know you can often get subscriptions cheap but a simple trip to the local library will probably do you good anyway. Besides, the library often has many other items you can freely read!

Gym Memberships

Gym memberships are another mind-boggling expense I don’t understand. We’ve tried them multiple times in our lives but, in my opinion, most people do NOT get their money’s worth. Most family YMCA memberships are easily $80 or more–unless you get a discount for some reason–which is a bit ridiculous. You can easily ditch the gym membership and workout at home. That can save a thousand dollars or more each year.

Cell Service

Another gripe I have is cellular service. I still haven’t figured out how to dramatically lower these bills since they are a virtual necessity for my wife’s job. Besides, the services make it almost a no-brainer to pay for a bit more data usage or a better smartphone but it is still money being put towards something that might not be entirely necessary.

Insurance Quotes

Although not usually a monthly subscription (we pay twice yearly) automobile insurance rates can vary quite dramatically from one company to the next. I’m sure the same can be said for homeowners/renters insurance as well as any other type of insurance. It’s a big expense that’s easy to write off and not bother with shopping around. I believe that when my wife shopped around for our vehicle insurance when we first moved to Washington state she found at least $100 difference in quotes PER MONTH!

Final Thoughts

I’m sure there are others I can list but these are a good start. I’d say it’s a good exercise every six months or so and look at all the potential monthly subscriptions you’re paying for make an honest assessment as to whether they’re truly used and useful or not. I’ll bet you can easily save hundreds to thousands of dollars each year without much trouble.


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Comments

9 responses to “Cancel Monthly, Yearly Subscriptions: Save Hundreds to Thousands of Dollars!”

  1. Jim Ellis

    I recently lost my company cell phone when the company I was working for got rid of them all to save money, and I looked at lots of plans for a while. Finally, I checked out a relatively new company to the Seattle area that is building some storefronts in my area (though the company itself has been around a long time back east). The company is called Cricket. My sons had cell phones through the Wal-Mart pre-pay plan we would buy them every year for Christmas but now both have converted because this costs us way less. With Cricket my 2 sons and my wife and I all have unlimited voice and text and data plans for $120/month (total for all 4 of us). I know lots of people who pay more than that for their single line. One of us has the basic data plan and the other 3 have the medium plan which is $10/month more each. The only difference is how much high speed data you get before the speed drops. Cricket is on the ATT Network plus has some towers of their own on top of that so their coverage is pushing toward Verizon’s. The wonderful part is there is NO CONTRACT! I loved that part – no long term commitments. It is all pre-pay with automatic deductions. Seriously, I don’t own stock, don’t sell them, get nothing out of this for myself or anyone I know. I am just a VERY happy money-conscious customer sharing what I found. We split the cost 4 ways and my sons pay their own share back to us. The more phones you get on the same account (up to 5) the cheaper they all get. I think 5 phones on the basic plan is only $100/month. I always had Verizon through my job but I haven’t noticed any difference in quality. We all have iPhones. Cricket was able to convert mine over from Verizon. That is a money-saving cell phone tip for anyone who is looking. It is saving me a huge amount of money and since I got laid off after 29 years in a reorganization 2 months ago, that helps a lot. Their web site is http://www.cricketwireless.com. Hope you or someone else benefits from that.

    1. Jim, that’s very intriguing. We currently have three iphones on Verizon and probably pay at least that much with (probably) less overall data. I’ll have to look into Cricket since the biggest reason why we went with Verizon was because they supposedly had the best coverage in the Seattle area. I also like the no commitment part too. Thanks!

  2. Dan

    If you are using windows 8 or higher then your ebooks and mags purchased through the Kindle store are not stored on your computer at all. What occurs is that sections of the ebook are downloaded and deleted as they are read. There is a solution. Prior to windows 8 you could download the Kindle reader program and install it. You would then log in and download your kindle purchases to your computer and they would be stored in a folder inside your documents folder. This allowed you to retain your purchases on your computer. I would periodically backup my kindle purchases to an external backup drive.
    Well you can still download the old Kindle reader program and install it in Windows 8. It will work and will still function correctly. Do not use the new Windows App for windows 8.

  3. Lynda

    I’m leary of cancelling my hard copy magazines, & or ordering books for Kindle, etc. I guess I don’t know enough about it, but I’m thinking if/WHEN obama turns off the internet, or something happens that destroys our connection to it, will we still be able to access those things? I don’t know where the ‘cloud’ is. Do you need internet access to retrieve your stuff from the cloud? I’m just afraid I’ll lose all my stuff, if the only way we can access it is via the internet. Can someone please explain to me how these things are handled?

    1. If you download these books or whatever to a tablet then you shouldn’t lose any of it no matter what the government or others do. The much bigger problem would be not being able to power your tablet or laptop to access the information. In my opinion, don’t worry about losing any of the information you download to your tablet/laptop but spend your time learning to build a basic off-grid power system to run them.

  4. Dan

    It’s sure a good thing your newsletter doesn’t charge a subscription. I’m still waiting for the rural high speed internet we all paid for. Why don’t you turn you cell phones in and get one of the free Obamaphones?

    1. Obamaphones sound great, Dan… but you first!

  5. Jill

    I got the amazon prime for the shipping as well. The video streaming was a bonus. I do love it!

    1. Shipping is the ONLY real reason to get Amazon Prime… the rest should just be considered a bonus.

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