Spring Cleaning Part 3

Video Transcript

If you've taken down your Christmas lights, then it might be time to try a little spring cleaning - but for your wallet. Hey this is Chris with Money Burst, and this is part three of our financial spring-cleaning series.

Today let's take a look at those monthly subscriptions, because right now it is a great time to just go in and double check and make sure that you're not paying for a subscription that you're not even using anymore. Because, you know, I used to think that there was no way that someone would not know that they're paying a monthly subscription. Like how would you not know? But then I was reminded that I'm not a normal person. I host a show called Money Burst, so I might be looking at my bank account a little more than the average person.

Recently, I had a friend who told me that he realized that he had been paying $10 a month to SiriusXM for the past three years. And he doesn't even listen. He just signed up because there was a promotion. He was like, 'Oh, this is a good deal.' And so, he ended up giving them $360 for service that he doesn't even use. And so, this just proves that it is so easy to lose track of these automatic purchases.

So, what I want you to do is, I want you to take 30 minutes this weekend - it probably will only take you 20 - but let's just say 30 and you'll be excited when it takes a little bit less. But I want you to take those 30 minutes and I want you to go and look over all of your statements, your credit card statements, your bank statements, just for the past month. I want you to go through line by line and just make sure that everything you're paying for is something that you actually want and something that you're using.

Because if you see something that you don't recognize or something that's just like 'I don't even know when I signed up for this,' that is a red flag and that means it's time to go and take action and cancel that subscription.