Personal finance
Subscription audit
Every subscription is “just a few dollars a month.” Added up and run over years, the total is a real number, here it is.
Subscriptions are priced to feel small: a few dollars here, ten there. But they renew every month, forever, and they add up quietly. This totals what you actually spend a year across streaming, music, apps, the gym and the rest. And shows what the same money could become if it were invested instead.
If you invested it instead, at 7%.
Adjust the amounts to match your subscriptions.
Worked example
A fairly ordinary stack, video, music, cloud, gym and a couple of apps, totaling $85/month:
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Total per month | $85 |
| Total per year | $1,020 |
| Invested for 20 years (at 7%) | $44,279 |
$85/month barely registers, but it's $1,020 a year. And the same amount invested at 7% for 20 years would grow to about $44,279. The goal isn't to cancel everything; it's to see the true price of "just a few dollars a month" and keep only what you value.
Questions
Why does a small monthly cost matter so much?
Because it repeats forever and compounds when invested. A $85 monthly habit is over $5,100 across five years of spending alone, before counting the growth you'd have earned by investing it.
How do I audit mine?
Scan a bank or card statement for recurring charges, the forgotten ones are usually there. And list every one. Cancel what you don't use, downgrade shared plans, and switch annual billing on for the keepers, which is often cheaper.
Related tools
- 50/30/20 budget where subscriptions fit
- Cost of waiting to invest where the redirected money goes
- Net worth the long-run payoff
The invested figure assumes a steady 7% return, which markets do not deliver smoothly. Not financial advice.