Open a spreadsheet and create a comprehensive list of all your memberships and subscriptions with due dates, monthly costs, annual costs, and a value ranking of each service.

While it may seem mundane and unneeded at first glance, a detailed list of your subscriptions and memberships may be the most important financial choice you make today. You might be surprised at what will be discovered.

Have you ever tallied up your monthly subscriptions and memberships?

I certainly thought I had a handle on mine— I figured I had about seventeen in total, which included the typical streaming services, a few software services, and a handful of cheap subscriptions that were paid for on an annual basis. I had this vague notion that I was spending around a hundred bucks a month on the safe side. But oh, how wrong I was!

After taking half an hour to compile my subscription list, I was shocked to discover that my actual expenditure averaged a whopping $163.25 per month, spread across thirty-four different services.

I had completely overlooked half of my subscriptions because they were those sneaky annual subscriptions that lurked beneath the surface—a wholesale club membership here, a yearly credit card fee there, and let’s not forget those eleven services I stopped using long ago! It’s a classic case of “out of sight, out of mind,” and boy, did it cost me.

For years, I had been underestimating my expenses by a cool $63.25 per month, a staggering $759 more than I had anticipated over the course of a year. It’s a cautionary tale, really. We tend to focus on the well-known services — the Netflix subscriptions, the Amazon Prime accounts — but it’s the lesser-known services that often slip through the cracks.

As our list of subscriptions grows, so too does the challenge of keeping track of them all. It’s a veritable minefield out there and if we’re not careful, we risk getting blown off course by those hidden charges and forgotten memberships.

Think about it. Do you know how much you spend on subscriptions each month down to the penny? Do you know the annual cost of these services combined? If you needed to free up money fast, which ones would you cancel first? And perhaps most importantly, are you using each subscription to its fullest potential?

These are hard answers to keep in your head at all times, to simplify it we make an educated guess based on our own mental math and memory. However, without a clear understanding of your monthly and annual commitments, you may be unknowingly hemorrhaging money on services you rarely use or even forgot you had. This is why a subscription list comes in handy.

By meticulously documenting the details of each subscription, you empower yourself to make informed decisions about your spending habits. No longer will you be caught off guard by unexpected charges or forgotten renewals. Instead, you’ll have full visibility into your every subscription and member that you have, allowing you to proactively manage your expenses and avoid unnecessary fees.

With your subscriptions laid out before you, you’ll be better equipped to identify any unnecessary or redundant services and take action to cancel them.