The moment I realized I was paying $45 a month for nothing

I was going through my bank statements last month and saw a $45 charge for "identity protection" that I signed up for like 3 years ago. I never once used it or even thought about it until I noticed it was auto-renewing every single month. That's over $1,600 I could have just thrown into my savings account instead. Has anyone else found random subscriptions they just forgot about draining their account?

4 comments

4 Comments

richard_anderson24d agoMost Upvoted

$45 a month for three years adds up to $1,620 like umar59 said, and that got me thinking. I used to defend those automatic subscription charges too, but @the_mary has a point about context mattering. Then I found an old gym membership I swore I canceled two years ago still billing me $30 a month. Never once stepped foot in that place. I changed my mind after that. Sometimes you really are just paying for nothing.

cora86324d ago

And @umar59 is right again, I saw a thing saying automatic payments trick your brain into not noticing the money leaving.

umar591mo ago

Actually that 3 years times 12 months would be $1,620 not $1,600, so even more wasted.

the_mary1mo ago

But hold on, @umar59, are we really sure that $45 a month is just straight up "wasted"? What if someone's paying for a service they actually use every single day, like a streaming platform or cloud storage for their photos? Not everything is a Netflix subscription you forgot to cancel. Sometimes that $45 covers peace of mind or convenience that you can't really put a dollar amount on. Plus, if they're using it for work or school, that's literally an investment, not a waste. So yeah, math is math but context matters a lot here.