The 5-minute subscription audit: find the money you forgot you're spending

Short answer

Most people don't know what they spend on subscriptions. In a C+R Research survey, people first guessed $86 a month; when they listed every service, the average was $219 — about 2.5 times their guess. The fix takes five minutes and one download from your bank.

Why subscriptions are so easy to lose track of

• Free trials turn into paid plans automatically, often months after you've forgotten about them.
• Annual renewals hit once a year, so they never feel like a monthly cost.
• Prices creep up. A streaming or software plan that cost less when you joined may cost more now — and the increase arrives as a short email.
• App-store billing hides the name. Everything you subscribed to through your phone can show up as a single line like APPLE.COM/BILL or GOOGLE *.
• Small charges don't trigger alarms. A $6.99 app looks harmless; six of them are about $500 a year.

The 5-minute subscription audit

1. Download 3 months of statements (CSV if your bank offers it) for every checking account and credit card. Three months catches monthly charges; check your last year for annual ones.
2. Mark everything that repeats — same merchant, similar amount, every week, month or year.
3. Look for price increases: the same service charging more than it did a few months ago.
4. Ask two questions for each one: did I use it in the last month? Would I sign up again today at this price?
5. Cancel, downgrade or pause — then move the money (see below) so it doesn't quietly disappear into other spending.

Skip the manual work: our free subscription tracker reads your bank's CSV, finds recurring charges, flags price increases and buy-now-pay-later plans — and it runs entirely on your device, with no bank login. For your whole budget, use Money X-ray.

What your audit could be worth

Monthly deposits, 5% a year compounded monthly — an example rate, not a promise. Try your own numbers in the compound interest calculator.

How to cancel — and what the law says

• On your phone: iPhone → Settings → your name → Subscriptions. Android → Google Play → your profile → Payments & subscriptions → Subscriptions.
• Bought on a website: cancel in your account settings there, and save the confirmation email or screenshot.
• Federal law: the FTC's nationwide "click to cancel" rule was struck down by a federal appeals court in July 2025 before it took effect. But the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act still requires online sellers to provide "simple mechanisms" to stop recurring charges.
• State law: many states have their own auto-renewal laws. California's, expanded on July 1, 2025, requires a yearly reminder for subscriptions and lets you cancel the same way you signed up (online if you joined online).
• Still being charged? Dispute it with your card issuer. On a credit card you generally have 60 days from the statement date to dispute a billing error.

Don't let the savings disappear

Cancelled $40 a month of subscriptions? Set up an automatic $40 monthly transfer to savings the same day — otherwise it tends to vanish into other spending. If you don't have one yet, build an emergency fund first; if you carry a card balance, put it toward the highest-rate card. Then plan the rest with the monthly budget planner.