The Subscription Audit: A 15-Minute Checklist to Find Money You're Losing

"Review your subscriptions" is common financial advice that almost nobody follows, because it's vague enough to postpone indefinitely. Here's a version specific enough to actually finish in one sitting.

Step 1: Pull your last two months of bank and card statements (5 minutes)

Look specifically for recurring charges — same amount, similar date, repeating. Don't categorize yet, just flag every one you see.

Step 2: List every flagged charge in one place (5 minutes)

Name, amount, and how often it's billed. This is the entire list — you're not missing anything hiding in a third account you forgot about, because you pulled statements from everywhere you have a card.

Step 3: Sort into three piles (3 minutes)

- Definitely keep — used it in the last 30 days, clearly worth it. - Definitely cancel — haven't opened it in months, or you forgot you even had it. - Not sure — this is normal. Don't force a decision here yet.

Step 4: Cancel the "definitely cancel" pile right now (2 minutes to start, follow-through varies)

Do this immediately while you're already looking at the list. If you close the tab and plan to "do it later," the odds of it actually happening drop fast — this is exactly the same inertia that got the subscription this far in the first place.

Step 5: Put everything into a tracker so the next audit takes five minutes, not fifteen

The reason this audit needs to happen at all is that nothing was being tracked continuously. Once everything's in one dashboard with renewal dates visible, "audit" stops being an occasional emergency project and just becomes glancing at a page you already check.