So, we are back with another 2 Cents episode of Bank Chats, a mini episode of Bank Chats. A very small, shortened version of Bank Chats, if you will. I am Drew Thomas with me is Jeff Matevish as before. Hey, Jeff. Hello. And so, we sat down today to talk a little bit about subscriptions. And I think we all have some kind of subscription that we currently have signed up for, whether it's streaming or streaming services, even, even certain apps like weather apps that you know, you get some that are free, some that you have to pay for. There's all kinds of different things out there; car starters and different subscriptions you might order like, from like stores and things like that.
Magazines, I mean if people still read magazines, but yeah, well, you'd have
a digital magazine. Yeah, yeah, that's true. That's true, newspaper. Yeah, news. That's, you know, that's a really good one, like the newspapers out there that have gone to a digital model. And you're paying for that digital newspaper to be delivered to your inbox. Are you really reading it? Right, right. Maybe you are, maybe you're not. But that's kind of what we're going to talk about today are subscriptions that have sort of gotten lost in the shuffle that you're paying for, that you might not necessarily be using. And that money's being spent whether you're using it or not. Right. So, you know, I was looking at an NPR article, and in that NPR article, they were talking a little bit about subscriptions. They say on average, about 8% of customers canceled during the months when they're asked to actively renew their subscription. Only 2% of those who cancel are doing so during other months. And I think that that's kind of the key is that you get a lot of these subscriptions that do this sort of idea of, hey, there's a free trial, right? And you get you get your free three months, and then we're going to start, you know, then your subscription automatically renews. Yeah, right. Yeah. Do you have anything like that? Like, what do you, what do you subscribe to?
Streaming services galore, definitely. Because yeah, you can't have one app that does it all anymore.
No, that's true. I'm the same way I have. I have like every streaming service out there, I think, yeah, yeah. And I'm paying as much for those as I am for cable, which is sad. I'm probably I mean, seriously, when you add up all those individual likes, and, you know, like, $6.99, $7.99, and $2.90, whatever it is, and like, you add all that up, and all of a sudden, it's like spending $70.00-$80.00 a month on streaming services. Yeah, you know, pretty easily.
I want to watch this one movie while I gotta get out of this app and go to this app. I don't know where it's at. You know?
Yeah. And we get you is that there are some shows that are available on multiple streaming services and some shows that are only available on one and then you're paying for that one show. Like that was a big deal when, when The Office left Netflix, I remember that was a big, and Friends it, there's The Office and Friends that were, there were both on Netflix at one point. Yeah. And they, they moved to other platforms. And people were just losing their mind over the idea of having to switch to whatever platform they moved to. I can't even remember I think, I think The Office went to HBO Max? Something like that, which is no longer HBO Max it's now Max, because you know, we just keep changing names and colors and you know, gotta keep people confused. Fresh. Yeah, you know, fresh or con-, you say fresh, I say confused. So, so is that, is that why you have multiple streams is so you, so you can watch like one show on one thing? Oh, yeah,
I mean, pretty much. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. What other subscriptions do we have? Shopping subscription. So, you know, you may have Amazon you know, for example, Amazon Prime, you pay a subscription to be able to get two-day shipping. Go even further, you know, you have Amazon Music, which is still an Amazon product, but it's a completely different subscription, you know, yeah,
that's true. Well, that's true because you get well speaking of videos, so you get Prime Video as part of your Amazon subscription for Prime, but you only get a limited music library as part of your Amazon Prime subscription. If you want the full music library, you have to get the Amazon Music subscription. True, true. So, I think with this article, and there are a number of articles. There was another article we were looking at from a lesser-known publication called Techlicious, which I just love the name, is talking about what do you do whenever you don't realize you're, you're paying these, these fees? Because I think to your point about shopping, if I have a subscription for, I don't know coffee beans, right, I'm getting coffee beans delivered to my front door. Like I recognize that I must have paid for this because it showed up. You have something tangible. Yeah, yeah, exactly. The same thing like, you know if you talk about auto pay with like your electric bill or your water bill. Like if you don't have water, you know that something is wrong, your pipes are frozen, or you didn't pay your bill. Yeah, but with these streaming subscriptions, especially and sometimes you just don't realize you're paying the money. You, you, you to your point you, you bought it to watch one show or one movie, and then you forgot about it.
Yeah. Or you sign up for that, you know, 99 cents a month, you know, for a year, starter fee, and you know, you don't think about it, because you, like you said you wanted to watch one show. Yeah. And then your year is up, and it's now, you know, $20 a month.
Yeah, you bring up a good point, I just bought a, I just bought a car about six months ago. And as part of buying the car, they said, hey, you get three months of Sirius XM, you know, as a thank you for buying the car because the car came with Sirius XM, right? And then they said at the end of the three months for an additional $2 we'll extend we'll double your subscription. For $2, you can have six months of Sirius XM. And now I'm coming to the point where I'm getting close to that end of the six months. And I'm starting to think about how do I cancel this subscription? Yeah,
you better start thinking about that early. Yeah, because actually I had a relative that tried canceling XM Radio, and he had a heck of a time. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Because you mean, you make a phone call and now you talk to a robot, and you can't always get through to an actual person. He ended up going to his credit card company and said, you know, hey, just stop paying refused to pay this because I've tried and tried, and I can't get through to anybody to cancel this subscription. Yeah, that's crazy.
That's crazy. And well, you bring up credit cards, your statement. So, sometimes you can look at your bank statement, your credit card statement, and you see these entries on there. Yeah. And that's one way that you can take a look and see what subscriptions you're signed up for that maybe you're not using. Yeah, but sometimes it's tough to even tell what those descriptions are, you know, when you go down through and you see, you know, $6.99 and its sort of a gobbledygook of letters, that if you know what it is, you know what it is, but to the average person, it's, it's not easily decipherable. Yeah, yeah. And we have stuff, you know, even for things like computers, like you have to have subscriptions now, for things like Microsoft Office, a lot of times you have a subscription. Or, if you have a gaming system, like an Xbox or PS5, you might have a subscription to be able to just play games online.
Yeah, the physical disk is going extinct. Yeah. Yeah. I
remember, whenever I was a kid, you actually had friends come over and physically sit in the room with you and play video games. Now. Now, you may not even do that half the time anymore. Yeah, yeah. But those are the kinds of things that I think we're talking about, too, is this idea that okay, you, maybe you were a gamer three years ago, but you got a different job, you don't have the time, you had kids. Now you, you have other interests, but you're still paying that subscription fee to be able to play that video game online, even though you haven't picked up a controller in a year and a half. Yeah. Right. So, let's talk a little bit about how to cancel subscriptions that you're no longer using. Okay. Yeah. Because one of the things that I was reading here is that that's not always easy. You absolutely cannot always figure out exactly where your subscription is housed. Let's put it that way. I think if you go to like to your Apple iPhone, don't, isn't there a subscription section in your Apple iPhone? Like in the settings? There is? Yeah,
yeah. Under your Apple ID,
I think yeah, yeah. So, is that subscriptions that you signed up for on your phone?
I'm thinking, probably? I would think. Yeah. So,
if I sign up for a subscription on my phone, the subscriptions probably housed in there. Yeah. What happens whenever my subscription is through some other service? Say, for example, I get a new cell phone at Verizon, and Verizon says, hey, for the first year, you get a free subscription to Disney+, how do I cancel? Do I cancel Disney+ with, with Disney? Or do I cancel with, with Verizon?
Well, usually how it goes is you call one they tell you to call the other than that, that provider tells you to call the, the other one back. So, yeah, it goes around in a circle.
Yeah, that's frustrating. I mean, it's, and especially when you start thinking about like the, I think they are very, very deliberate in terms of what their fees are. I think most of these, these places, their fees are probably under $10.00, right? Per month. Yeah. So, you look at your debit card or your credit card, and you say, ah, it's only $7.00, I'll just, I'll just, I'll just let it go. It's only $8.00, I'll just let it go. Or maybe it was only $8.00, I thought, maybe that's what I spent at, at the convenience store yesterday, because I bought some chips, and I bought a soda. I mean, so they kind of fly under the radar a little bit. But if you think about it, if you had an $8.00 subscription to a service that you're not using, and say you have three of those. That's like $300.00 a year that you're wasting on stuff that you're not even using, man. Yeah, I mean, and you know, to some people, maybe $300.00 isn't much, but to me, it is something.
That's a utility bill. That's, that's a present, that's a Christmas present. That's true.
Yeah. And you know, we're recording this right at the beginning of December. So, I can guarantee you that there are going to be people out there right now listening to this, who have gotten introductory subscription offers at this time of year, that these places, they're hoping that you forget about them. Yeah. I mean, that's really what it comes down to. They're hoping that you forget about them, definitely. Yeah. So, there are apps out there and I think you did some research about different apps and different services out there that you can theoretically use that are, they say that they are designed to help locate and eliminate subscriptions that you're not using? Yeah,
some, you know, they will fight one of your subscriptions to try to get you a lower rate. Or if you're trying to cancel a subscription and you can't, they'll have an agent do it for you. But a lot of times there is a fee with that. So, you know, of course there is exactly it's another subscription.
I'm suppl-, supplanting one subscription for another
is what you're saying. Yes, yes. But in hopes that you're, you're gonna save money. Yeah. So that's, that's the big thing you got to look at, okay, how much can I potentially save? And is getting one of these apps or using one of these services worth it? You know, if the free version doesn't come with whatever feature you're looking for. So, what kind
of feet-, so, so you said about free. So, what, well, give me an example, like what would be something that would be part of the free version that isn't necessarily part of the paid version?
I think a lot of the free versions have budgeting tools. So, it may not be something to get rid of a subscription. But it may give you more of a visual of, hey, this is where I'm paying the most money on this subscription. Or, you know, hey, next year, I want to try to save, you know, $100.00 a month. Okay, how are you going to do that?
So, looking at some of the ones that you looked at, like you looked at like Mint, I think you, you looked at like a PocketGuard, Truebill, which is, which is I think Rocket Money, which is a pretty popular one, I think. And again, you know, just like everything else that we talk about on this podcast, we're not endorsing or trying to, we're not trying to sway you one way or the other. We're not trying to, we're not trying to tell you to use one and we're not trying to tell you not to use one, we're just trying to put the information out there about how they work. And whether or not, you can decide for yourself whether or not you think they're worthwhile. But I think, I'm looking down the list here, it looks like most of these come with some sort of a free version to start. Yeah. And then, you know, there's limits on how many subscriptions they'll track, there's limits on, you know, like this one here, like, you know, this, this one app here, I'm not going to looks like it's well, it's under Mint, but it's called Billshark? I don't know what that is, it says it keeps 40% of the savings, and then you keep 60%. So, if they save you $100.00, they're taking $40.00 as their fee, and then you're getting $60.00 back. So, that brings up a question, once they identify all your subscriptions, and you're able to pick and choose which ones you want to cancel, I don't need this anymore than right? I mean, theoretically, yeah.
I think that was, that was a complaint I did read because some of these apps, you know, you have to manually put in your information, your subscriptions and everything for them to be able to track it. By that point, you know what you're paying for. So, why are you using that?
Good point. And maybe it's so that they, maybe they know the secret that your, your family member didn't as to how to get in touch with people.
That, that could be you know, but you got to pay, you know, I don't think any of these, you know, the free version includes a subscription cancellation feature, you know, that, that's premium.
So, I mean, they get to coming or going, they really do. But I'm looking down here at this, this Rocket Money, so, it's like agent driven subscriptions, agent driven bill negotiations, but again, they're keeping anywhere from 30% to 60% of the amount that they're saving you. So, I think the, I think the bottom line is if you can identify some of this stuff on your own, it's probably just as easy for you to cancel your own subscriptions as it is to pay another company another fee to try to save money. I agree. You know, that's my take on it. I mean, I don't know, like, I know that a lot of banks, you know, will offer some sort of free budgeting software as part of their online banking service, things like that. And, you know, maybe that's it, maybe that's your avenue, you know, you look through there and you figure out your budget. I think, I think the big trick is just understanding where your subscriptions live and being able to cancel them that way. True. So yeah, so I think that's, I think that pretty much gives, gives a pretty, pretty good flavor about what we were talking about. I mean, just keep an, keep an eye on what you're buying, you know, and especially in the holiday season. When you're signing up for stuff, you know, put a little reminder in your calendar, you have a sma-, if you have a smartphone, put a reminder in your calendar that says hey, in three months, I gotta cancel subscription X. Yeah, you know, if you, if you look back and you think yourself, man, I haven't watched anything on that particular streaming platform in six months, cancel it. It's not like they're not gonna, they're not gonna, it's not like once you leave, they're not going to let you back in. You know, you can re-subscribe if you want to, but cancel it for now. Save yourself the money. Yeah. Right. Any other suggestions that you can think of? Don't just
pay your credit card bill. Look at what you're paying for first. That I
mean, that's, that's a really good point. I mean, you know, blind paying just all, I owe this much I pay it. Boy, that's, that can, that can definitely get you into trouble sometimes. And
it's so, so easy now that, you know, most people will go to paperless billing, you know, you don't get that piece of paper in the mail anymore saying, hey, this is how much you owe. You know, you don't open anything. You may get an email saying hey, your statements ready or something like that, but...
Which is buried in 25,000 other emails we
get every day, right, right, those emails from companies that want you to sign up for a subscription, right?
Exactly. All right. Well, you know what, Jeff, if we don't talk to anybody have a happy holiday season. Hey, you as well. Absolutely. And Happy New Year. I'm sure we'll talk again in January. It'll be completely fresh and new. And we'll be subscription free. Yes. Yeah, thanks. And if you haven't listened to the most recent full episode of Bank Chats, make sure you check that out. I think we were talking Trusts episode 5 was the one right before here. And we've got, we've got a good one coming up later this month on budgeting. So, we're gonna stick with that theme. Yeah, we're sticking with the theme. That's, you know, it's the holiday season. We're all overspending, we can definitely use some budgeting talk. So, we're going to talk some budgeting later on this month with a special expert guest as well. So, good deal. All right. Hey, Jeff, take care. Hey, you too Drew. Thanks. Thank you.
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