Most people have more subscriptions than they realize. An audit brings every recurring charge into one place so you can decide — with intention — what to keep, what to cancel, and what to revisit later. Use this checklist once, then repeat it annually.
Before You Start
Set aside 30–45 minutes in a quiet moment. Gather access to your bank accounts, credit cards, email (for renewal notices), and your phone's app store subscription page. A spreadsheet or notebook works fine for the list.
The Checklist
- Gather your statements. Pull the last 3 months of bank and credit card transactions. Highlight every recurring charge.
- Check your app stores. Review active subscriptions in Apple Settings or Google Play. Add any that do not appear on your bank statements.
- Search your email. Search for "subscription," "renewal," "receipt," and "trial" to catch services that bill annually or send infrequent notices.
- List every service. For each subscription, write down: service name, cost, billing frequency (monthly/annual), and last used date.
- Calculate the total. Add up monthly costs. For annual subscriptions, divide by 12 to see the monthly equivalent. Include both in your total.
- Mark each service: Keep, Cancel, or Review.
- Keep — you use it regularly and it fits your budget
- Cancel — you have not used it in 30+ days or forgot it existed
- Review — you use it occasionally; decide again in 30 days
- Cancel the "Cancel" list today. Do not defer — open each service and cancel now while you have momentum.
- Set calendar reminders for "Review" items. Give yourself 30 days, then decide keep or cancel.
- Add the total to your budget. Create a Subscriptions category with the updated monthly total.
- Schedule your next audit. Put a recurring annual reminder on your calendar to repeat this process.
After cancelling, watch your next bank statement to confirm charges actually stopped. Some services take a full billing cycle to process cancellation.
Common Subscriptions People Forget
As you work through the checklist, pay extra attention to these categories:
- Cloud storage (iCloud, Google One, Dropbox)
- Software and productivity tools (note apps, VPNs, password managers)
- Fitness apps and gym memberships
- News and magazine subscriptions
- Free trials that converted to paid plans
- Shared family plans where someone else manages billing
After the Audit
Once your list is clean, maintain it with a quick monthly check — scan for new recurring charges and confirm nothing snuck back in. Pair this with your regular expense tracking so subscriptions stay visible in your budget.
Kamino helps you categorize and track recurring expenses alongside everything else, so your subscription total is always part of your monthly spending picture.