Declutter Your Subscriptions To Clear Your Mind

In the past 10 years we’ve moved away from buying individual items like DVDs, music albums and books towards subscription services like Netflix, Spotify and Audible. In fact it seems like there is a subscription services for practically everything now – you’d be hard pressed to find a big name company that doesn’t offer one in some form or another.  I even saw one for electric toothbrushes the other day!

It’s easy to see why subscription services are so popular, Netflix for example, costs $9.99 a month. When you can have seemingly unlimited viewing for the cost of a few  coffees, why wouldn’t you sign up? But that’s how they reel you in. One subscription for that amount is fine, but when you add in Amazon Prime, a gym membership, snack boxes, Apple music, Skype premium… it all starts to add up.

I am totally guilty of signing up for a lot of these services and then never using them. I’ve been slowly building up a serious number of “free” downloads from Audible. And I can’t remember the last time I actually read a magazine on my Texture app. So why do I keep these subscriptions?

It comes down to FOMO (fear of missing out). I’m afraid that once I cancel a subscription I’ll be missing out on all these exciting new books or magazines. My other issue is that when I try to cancel many companies  lower the  monthly costs to try to keep you. And I’m a sucker for a good deal. They  seem reasonable at the time, but if you’re not using the service you’re still wasting money!

I’ve started to purge all the subscriptions I no longer use  – you should do it too. Here’s how:

1. Take your last monthly credit card statement
2. Highlight every subscription service
3. Ask yourself – have I used this service in the last month? Am I likely to use it next month?
4. If the answer to both these questions is no – cancel it! Do it!
5. Yes, even if they offer you a much lower monthly rate, stay strong!

I recently went through a flurry of signing up to online mastermind groups and I haven’t really been involved in them as much as I could be!

When you really look into it you’ll be surprised how many of these monthly services you’re paying for – you could be saving yourself $100+ a month!

Not only will you save money but you’ll also rid yourself of a bit of anxiety. This digital clutter can weigh heavily on your psyche because you know you “should” use the service and then you feel guilty for not doing it.  Since I’ve unsubscribed I can tell you I definitely feel lighter.

What subscription services could you do without?