I had a vague sense that I was paying for too many subscriptions. Streaming services. Apps. Software. Storage. Newsletters. The kind of thing where you cannot quite remember what you signed up for, but the credit card statement looks slightly absurd.
So I cancelled all of it. For 60 days. Then I tracked what I actually missed. Here is the report.
The setup
Rules:
- Cancel every monthly or annual subscription
- Make a list of what got cancelled
- For 60 days, track what I actively missed (versus what I just thought I should have)
- At the end, re-subscribe only to what I genuinely wanted back
What got cancelled:
- Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, HBO Max, Apple TV+ (5 streaming services)
- Spotify Premium
- iCloud 200GB
- The New York Times
- The Atlantic
- An app for habit tracking ($5/mo)
- Adobe Creative Cloud (just Lightroom plan)
- Audible
- A meditation app ($14.99/mo)
- Two newsletters with paid tiers
- Dropbox Plus
- A workout app ($12.99/mo)
- An online learning platform ($19.99/mo)
Total monthly cost before: about $190. Total annual cost before: about $2,280.
Week 1: discomfort
The first week was harder than expected. I kept reaching for things that were no longer available. Tried to open Netflix on the TV. Wanted to add a song to my Spotify playlist. Wanted to read a NYT article a friend sent me.
Each time I had to actively decide: do I want to re-subscribe just for this? Mostly the answer was no. Sometimes I would google around for a free alternative. Sometimes I just did without.
Weeks 2-4: adjustment
By week 2, the urgency faded. I stopped reaching for the cancelled services. I started reading the books I had bought and never finished. I listened to music through YouTube, badly.
Energy and focus went up slightly. I think this was real, not placebo. Without the streaming services as easy default options, I did other things in the evening.
The first thing I genuinely missed: iCloud storage. Without it, my phone backup stopped working and my photos stopped syncing. This was an actual problem.
Weeks 4-8: settled
By the end of the 60 days, the experiment had become routine. I had a clear sense of what I missed and what I did not.
What I re-subscribed to
1. iCloud 200GB ($2.99/mo). Necessary infrastructure for my phone. Should never have been a question.
2. Netflix ($15.49/mo). The only streaming service I actually used. Cancelled all the others permanently.
3. Spotify Premium ($10.99/mo). I genuinely missed it. Music quality and ad-free listening are worth the cost for me.
4. The Atlantic ($8.25/mo, annual rate). I missed the long features. Did not miss the NYT, which I had been reading mostly out of habit.
5. Adobe Lightroom ($9.99/mo). I edit photos enough that the alternatives were too much friction.
What I did not re-subscribe to
The 4 other streaming services. Once cancelled, I noticed I had not actually been using them. I had subscribed during specific shows and forgot to cancel after.
The NYT. I was reading maybe two articles a week and feeling guilty about not reading more. The cancellation removed the guilt and I do not miss the articles.
Audible. I had been listening to about one audiobook a quarter. I can buy them individually for less.
The meditation app. I had used it twice in the past three months. It was an aspirational subscription.
The habit tracker app. Replaced with a notebook. Better, free.
The workout app. Replaced with free YouTube workouts and a written program. Same effect.
The online learning platform. I never finished any of the courses. Free YouTube tutorials work just as well for what I actually want to learn.
Dropbox. Replaced with iCloud and Google Drive free tiers. Did not need a third storage service.
The two paid newsletters. The free versions were enough.
The new monthly total
Before: $190/mo, $2,280/year.
After: $47.71/mo, $573/year.
Savings: $1,707/year. About $142/mo.
What I learned
1. Most subscriptions are aspirational, not actual. I was paying monthly for things I imagined I would use, not things I actually used.
2. The 60-day pause is the key. The "I will cancel if I do not use it" mindset never works because you forget to cancel. Cancelling first and resubscribing only what you miss is the better filter.
3. Bundling does not always save money. I had bundled streaming services I did not need to "save money." The actual savings came from cancelling things I did not use, not from bundle pricing.
4. The mental load of subscriptions is real. Going from 14 subscriptions to 5 has reduced a small but real ambient mental load.
What I would do again
Run this experiment annually. The subscriptions that were worth it stay worth it. The ones that should be cancelled get cancelled. The whole exercise takes maybe two hours plus the 60-day waiting period.
Do this and you will probably also save more than you expect.
This is not advice
Your subscription needs are your own. Some of mine that I cancelled might be essential for you. The point of writing this down is the methodology — cancel everything, wait, re-subscribe only what you actively miss — not the specific list.
The total amount Americans spend on unused subscriptions is, according to various estimates, somewhere between $200 and $500 per person per year. There is real money in this experiment.
