I Canceled Every Subscription for 3 Months — Here's What I Saved (and Learned)
With prices rising and economic uncertainty spilling into my living room from an endless stream of crises unfolding around the world, I decided to conduct a three-month experiment in spartan living by canceling my recurring subscriptions, as so many personal finance pros suggest.
But first, I established a standard. The goal here was personal improvement, so I didn’t want to end subscriptions that could impact my work (Grammarly), harm my finances (SoFi Plus) or impede my health (gym membership). Everything else fell into the category of distraction, so I stuck with the category in which people are most likely to overspend — streaming services.
The process was daunting, but the results were eye-opening.
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Subscriptions I Canceled
Here are the subscriptions I jettisoned for the benefit of budgetary belt-tightening.
YouTube TV — $82.99 per month
Netflix (Standard) — $19.99 per month
Disney+ Hulu Premium Bundle — $19.99 per month
AMC+ (Premium) —$10.99 per month
What I Saved
Modest recurring payments are easy to overlook as they’re charged piecemeal, but the experiment shows just how quickly the slow, steady trickle of subscription costs adds up.
Number of subscriptions: Four
Combined monthly cost: $133.96
Total for three months: $401.88
Total for one year: $1,607.52
For perspective, if you invested that money instead and earned the S&P 500’s historical 10% average annualized return, you’d have about $30,000 in just 10 years, with 41% coming from investment gains.
What I Learned
My experiment generated two key takeaways:
First, subscriptions have become so expensive that canceling them can no longer be considered aggressively frugal. Eliminating just a handful can generate four-figure annual savings and five-figure, long-term, wealth-building potential.
Second, you can play without paying.
Work Your Credit Card’s Third-Party Merchant Deals
Just because I canceled paid subscriptions doesn’t mean I lost access to top-tier paid platforms, thanks to valuable, but underutilized, credit card merchant deals. For example, my American Express Blue Cash Preferred card had third-party offers from Paramount+, Peacock and Discovery+ for $12.99, $10.99 and $5.99 — the cost of one month’s subscription for each service delivered as a statement credit per billing cycle, up to three times.
That’s free access to three top platforms for three months, just for billing them to Amex and enrolling in the offers — and new merchant deals are available every month. Additionally, the card offers a generous 6% cash back on streaming as part of its standard benefits package.
Leverage Holidays and Sales
I also didn’t cancel HBO Max because doing so would have voided the Black Friday special I'd locked in back in November. The one-day deal gave me 12 months of service for $2.99 per month or $35.88 for the year. A standard HBO Max subscription regularly costs $18.49 per month or $184.99 per year.
It’s not just Black Friday. Prime Day, the winter holidays and other big sale events offer many too-good-to-pass-up streaming deals. At the time of my experiment, those were sunk costs, but if you're simply looking to reduce expenses, waiting for opportune purchasing deals will seriously slash your monthly bills.
Fill the Gaps With Free Alternatives
Free platforms like Tubi, Crackle, Pluto TV and Xumo Play offer truly free streaming, both as live channels and on-demand library access.
They’re sometimes glitchy, rarely as comprehensive as paid platforms and loaded with extended ads, but they, combined with easily accessible credit card merchant offers and annual sale events, can let you cobble together a cost-effective patchwork of platforms that you can enjoy for free, or close to it, all year long.
This article was provided by MoneyLion.com for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, legal, or tax advice.
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