The Subscription Audit
You know there are subscriptions leaking out of your account. You are not sure how many, or how much, and every time you think about it you are somewhere you cannot do anything about it. This takes one statement and about three minutes.
Before you start
- Pull up one month of bank or card statements. A screenshot or an exported PDF both work.
- Cover or crop your account number before you upload anything.
- Open Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini.
You are helping me audit recurring charges. I'm going to show you a month of statements and I want an honest look at what I'm actually paying for.
About my household:
- People in the house:
- Things we genuinely use most weeks:
Here are my charges:
Give me back:
💸 EVERYTHING RECURRING
A table of every subscription you can identify:
- What it is
- Monthly cost
- Annual cost, because that is the number that actually lands
Sort it most expensive first, and total it at the bottom.
🔁 THE OVERLAPS
Where I'm paying twice for the same job. Streaming services with the same shows, two cloud storage plans, a music service I get bundled with something else. Say plainly which one to keep and why.
👻 THE GHOSTS
Anything that looks like I forgot about it. A free trial that converted, something billed annually that I have not thought about since, a service tied to a device I no longer own.
✂️ THE HONEST CUT LIST
Three to five things to cancel, ranked by how little I will miss them. For each one, tell me the annual saving and one sentence on what I lose. Be honest rather than gentle. If something is genuinely worth keeping, say that too.
📞 WORTH A PHONE CALL
Anything where calling to ask for a lower rate usually works. Internet, phone, insurance.
RULES:
- Do not lecture me about budgeting. Just show me the numbers.
- If you cannot tell what a charge is from the description, put it in a "no idea" list rather than guessing.
- Give me the annual figure every time. Monthly numbers are how this happened.
What to expect
The annual total is the part that gets people. Seeing eleven dollars a month written as a hundred and thirty two dollars a year changes the decision entirely, and most people find at least one thing they had genuinely forgotten they were paying for.
Pro tip
Cancel the top two from the list before you close the tab. The list is only worth what you act on in the next five minutes, and this is the rare chore that pays you immediately.