How to Find Every Subscription You Pay For, and Cancel the Ones You Do Not Use

Subscriptions are easy to start and easy to forget, because most of them are not on your direct debit list. They are taken from a card, through an app store or through PayPal, and some renew once a year. To find them all, check four places, then cancel each one in the way that actually stops the payment.

Where subscriptions hide

• Card payments. Search the last three months of statements for every card for repeat amounts. Most streaming, software and gym payments are here, not in your direct debits.
• App stores. Your phone's settings list every subscription bought through the App Store or Google Play, including ones started in a game or an app.
• PayPal. Its settings list automatic payments separately from ordinary purchases.
• Direct debits. Your bank's app lists them. Memberships, magazines and some software sit here.
• Annual renewals. Search your email for words such as renewal, subscription and receipt over the last year. An annual plan appears on a statement once and is easy to miss.

Make the list

For each one, write down what it is, how much, how often, how it is paid, and the next renewal date. The date matters most: cancelling a day after an annual renewal usually means paying for the whole year.

Cancel so it actually stops

• Through the service first. Cancel in the account settings of the service itself and keep the confirmation email. This ends the contract, not just the payment.
• App store subscriptions are cancelled in the phone's subscription settings, not by deleting the app.
• A card payment that will not stop. A regular payment taken from a card is a continuous payment authority. You can tell your bank or card provider to stop it, and they must, even if the company has not agreed.
• A direct debit can be cancelled in your banking app. Tell the company as well: stopping the payment does not end the agreement, and they may treat the missed payment as a debt.

Keep it from building up again

Look at the list every few months, and before any annual renewal. The saving is rarely one large subscription. It is three or four small ones nobody uses.

How Wisemium helps

Add each subscription to Wisemium with its price and renewal date and it is kept beside the rest of the household's bills, with the monthly total in one place. The renewal date is shown as needing attention as it comes up, which is the moment to keep it or cancel it.