A household subscriptions audit you can finish in one evening

A subscriptions audit is a bank statement and an evening, not a new app to manage the apps you already forgot. The goal is a list of what leaves the account, who shares the login, and how you cancel the ones you do not use.

Start with money that already left

Open the last two months of the household current account, then the card you use for app stores. Write every repeating charge on one page: name, amount, which person set it up, and whether anyone used it this month. Include the app store, the gym, the streaming services, the cloud storage, and the “free trial” that is no longer free.

Shared logins count. If three people use one account, write down who has the password and who would notice if it stopped. A subscription nobody can log into is still being paid.

Cancel in writing

A button buried in an app is not always the end of the contract. Where you can, cancel in writing and keep a copy. Citizens Advice publishes template letters for cancelling goods or services. Use one rather than a chat transcript you cannot find later.

Before you cancel, read what you still owe. Some contracts run to a date. Some renew unless you say otherwise. The letter should name the account, the date you want the service to stop, and a request for written confirmation. If money keeps leaving after that date, the letter is the record you will need.

Decide what stays

Keep a service only if someone in the household can name the last time they used it. “We might” is not a use. If two services do the same job, keep the one people actually open and cancel the other the same evening. Waiting a week is how both survive.

Watch free trials. Put the end date in a shared calendar the day you start one, with the name of the person who must cancel it. A trial without a date is a subscription you have already agreed to forget.

What this is not

This is not investment advice, and it is not a claim about what you will save. The consumer rights pages on GOV.UK are the place to check if a paid service is faulty or not as described. For everything else, the win is a shorter list and a written cancel, not a new budgeting product.

Related, if the charges are software seats rather than household apps: when to stop adding tools.

Sources

• Citizens Advice, cancelling goods or services
• GOV.UK, consumer protection rights