How to find and cancel subscriptions you forgot about

To find every subscription you pay for, go through three months of statements for all your bank accounts and cards, then check the subscription lists in your app stores, PayPal and Amazon, and search your email for receipts. Write each one down with its price and renewal date, cancel the ones you haven't used in the past month, and set a reminder before any free trial ends. It takes about half an hour.

Why subscriptions are easy to lose track of

• Free trials turn into paid plans automatically.
• Yearly plans renew once and are forgotten for the other eleven months.
• Small amounts, like €4.99, don't stand out on a statement.
• They're spread across different cards, app stores and PayPal.
• Prices go up a little each year and nobody tells you loudly.

Step 1: check your statements

Open the transaction history for every current account, credit card and debit card you've used in the past year. Look at the last three months and note anything that repeats. Then scan back twelve months for yearly charges, which are the ones most people miss. Many banking apps let you search by merchant, which speeds this up.

Step 2: check the app stores and payment services

• iPhone and iPad: Settings, tap your name, then Subscriptions.
• Android: Google Play Store, tap your profile picture, then Payments and subscriptions, then Subscriptions.
• PayPal: Settings, then Payments, then Manage automatic payments.
• Amazon: Your Account, then Memberships and Subscriptions.

Charges through these often show up on your statement under the store's name, like "Apple" or "Google", rather than the app you're paying for, which is why they slip past in step 1.

Step 3: search your email

Search for "subscription", "renewal", "receipt", "trial", "membership" and "your plan". This catches things paid on a card you no longer use, and services billed to a partner's card that you're both using.

Step 4: write them all down

For each one, note the name, the price, how often it's charged and the next renewal date. Convert everything to a yearly cost, because that's the number that changes minds. A €9.99 monthly plan is €120 a year. Five of those is €600.

A typical list might look like this:

• Video streaming: €13.99 a month, €168 a year
• Second video streaming service: €8.99 a month, €108 a year
• Music: €11.99 a month, €144 a year
• Cloud storage: €2.99 a month, €36 a year
• Fitness app from a January trial: €59.99 a year
• Gym membership: €39 a month, €468 a year

That's about €984 a year, and it's rare for someone to use all six regularly.

Step 5: decide what stays

For each subscription, ask whether you used it in the last month and whether you'd sign up again today at this price. Then choose one of four options:

• Keep the ones you use every week.
• Downgrade to a cheaper plan with ads, fewer screens or less storage.
• Rotate: keep one streaming service at a time and switch when you've finished what you wanted to watch.
• Cancel the rest.

Step 6: cancel properly

• Cancel where you signed up: in the app store, on the company's website, or through PayPal.
• Keep the confirmation email until after the next billing date has passed without a charge.
• Deleting an app does not cancel its subscription.
• If a company makes cancelling difficult, ask your bank whether it can block future payments to that merchant. Many can, or you can replace the card.

How to stop new ones piling up

• When you start a free trial, put a reminder in your calendar two days before it ends.
• Keep one list of everything you pay for and add to it the moment you sign up.
• Check the list once a year, or every three months if you sign up for things often.
• Before taking a yearly plan, make sure you've used the monthly version for a while.

What the savings add up to

Cancelling two unused services at around €13 a month saves over €300 a year. Moved into savings, that's a good start on an emergency fund. Our guide to how much to keep in an emergency fund covers what to aim for.

If you want to see where the rest of your money goes too, read how to track your spending and stick with it.

Do it in mooves

1. Open Subscriptions and add each one with its price and how often it's charged.
2. mooves shows the monthly and yearly totals, which is usually the moment people start cancelling.
3. Add a reminder before trials and yearly renewals, and switch on On Budget so the costs count in your monthly plan.

Try it free