HOW CAN I KEEP ON TOP OF MY ONLINE SUBSCRIPTIONS?
Question
I’m drowning in online subscriptions and can’t keep track. I try to claim promotional offers by changing my email address but this just means that I can’t remember log-ins and passwords. And then I end up paying too much. Is there any app or online system that can track them? — Trish Mannion
Answer
There are a few apps, like Bobby, that help with this. But ultimately, you’re better off doing some basic things yourself to ease the growing online subscription trough which, for many people, is now well into double figures with news media, streaming sites, cloud storage, Amazon delivery and all sorts of other online services.
I know what you mean with promotional prices. For me, I get services like the New York Times for about €2 per month on a promotional fee for something like six months. But while it’s worth €2 a month to me, it probably isn’t worth the standard €12 monthly fee (on top of all the other services I subscribe to), which automatically kicks in after the promotional six-month period is over. The trick, therefore, is to cancel the service some time in the fifth month.
What I do is to set an online and phone calendar reminder on several consecutive days before the subscription is due to renew at full price. I then re-subscribe again at the promotional offer rate using a different email address (which usually qualifies you as a ‘different’ or ‘new’ user, even if you use the same credit card).
Even still, I do sometimes get ambushed by some services I happily subscribed to at a promotional price but may not pay full whack for, like Bloomberg or The Wall Street Journal.
In these cases, if I get caught, I’m charged the full whack (€20, €30 or more) just because I forgot to unsubscribe. One way to deal with this is to assign as many subscriptions as you can to a non-core, low-balance, topped-up banking app you might have, like Revolut. If you keep the amount in the app fairly low (like €15 or so), the request from one of the higher-costing subscriptions will be declined. You’ll be notified and given the chance, several times, to fulfil the subscription if you want to keep it up, or just unsubscribe. This gives you a lot more control than simply attaching your regular credit card, which will just instantly pay whatever money you previously agreed to pay after the promotional period ended.
It’s quite a blunt way of managing your subscriptions, but I’ve found that it has saved me quite a bit over the years, especially in a world where there are so many online services vying for your attention.