Yup, we have:
Daily newspaper (local)
Landline phone
AAA
AmazonPrime (but we really like “free” postage)
Safety Deposit Box at bank
Stopped cable TV—never watched it.
We plan to get storage unit for my nonprofit but due to covid haven’t. Currently the boxes are in my parent’s vacant home Rather than my living room. Never bought gym membership.
I tried to get H to cancel Amazon Prime but he refused. Now I’m glad because I’ve bought several seasons of current HGTV shows to watch via AP. We got rid of Uverse TV from AT&T about a year ago and I was considering getting it again. When I saw the pricing, especially after the first 12 months, it was clearly cheaper for me to buy a season of shows once in while instead.
A reminder that the thread is for “unneeded” subscriptions. If we all start listing our subscriptions we’ll be here all day just getting through those… 
Yes! Please post if you decide because of this reminder to cancel any subscriptions!
On the podcast where I heard this idea, they said that a woman had a storage unit she had avoided cleaning out for like two years. She was waiting in line and got anxious at the thought of doing it and said to the guy in front of her (maybe she knew he was a collector or picker or whatever) “Hey, I’ll give you the entire contents of my storage unit for $100 if I can turn it over to you when we get to the front of the line” - he took her up on it!
DD’19 rarely uses her local gym membership- but it’s only $10/month student rate so I haven’t touched it for fear it would go up in the future. Plus it’s a tiny bit of support for them right now. Though her BF informed us it’s $3 for a day pass, so she could get by on that for much less.
I also still have our landline. Again, I see it more as support because it’s a tiny cooperative phone & internet company that I want to survive. And I feel better having a landline I guess, like a security blanket. I did get a legit call on it yesterday, from family camp friends that used an old camp directory.
AAA membership is very valuable to me. Like the time that my key got stuck in the door lock and H didn’t want to take time off to help me. Thank god for the AAA locksmith to the rescue. (This may or may not have happened just now.)
We get decent use out of most of our subscriptions. Disney Plus is the exception, but I got a year membership. I won’t be renewing.
Wow! That’s a lot of storage units! I really wonder if they’re necessary…I’m sure in some cases they are necessary, but I’m sure if people took the effort to go through all the stuff in them, they’d find there is a lot of stuff they don’t really need. I know people who’ve had storage units and it’s full of stuff they just have to keep. It’s hard to change people or get them to see the light I guess.
We pretty much use all of our subscriptions. We try not to sign up for stuff that we aren’t really sure we won’t use all the time. We did get rid of cable because we don’t watch a lot of tv. We found we were watching Hulu and Netflix more then cable, so we cancelled the cable and just kept the streaming services. We do use Amazon prime because we also order stuff for my elderly stepfather who is not real savvy with technology and has trouble seeing. H hates going shopping or to stores so he gets a lot of use from Amazon prime…
I recently returned 2 cable/FIOS boxes that I have been paying for for nearly a year, unused! One was being used on a small TV in my kitchen when it just stopped working. I kept meaning to return it but never did. We ended up letting S19 take that tv to college with him last fall. We had another box hooked up to our basement tv, however, with two kids off at college, that tv was rarely being used. Shortly before COVID, our family room tv stopped working so we moved the basement tv upstairs and then we really did not need that box. We finally turned both boxes in a few weeks ago and I cringe to think of that wasted $20/month we had been paying. This is the precursor to us getting rid of cable/FIOS TV altogether and just keeping our internet.
I can’t think of any subscriptions we are paying for that we don’t regularly use. However, this thread reminded me that I needed to check my Netflix subscription. I usually pay for the ability to have two people using Netflix simultaneously but I upgraded to four at some point last spring when I kept getting bumped out when I tried to watch something. I just downgraded it back to 2. Only saves me $3 a month but hey, over time, that adds up. ?
One benefit to COVID - dh is finally getting his money’s worth at the golf club he joined 25 years ago. Though he has always played there when he could, between our kids’ sports schedules over the years and his busy travel schedule for work, it was a lot of money for not playing that often. Well, COVID canceled all business travel, he has a lot more free time and not much else he can safely do, so he has been playing golf at least 3x a week. I can’t complain!
We use our subscriptions. We use Amazon Prime for streaming more than shipping since we don’t have cable. We have AAA and have had batteries replaced twice. We have AARP - needed to get it to get our Medigap plans, but it also gives us a discount on our cell phone plan that more than makes up for the AARP cost.
I’m very careful when I sign up for free trials to mark my calendar for the date I need to cancel if I don’t want to keep it.
I am USUALLY really good at not wasting money, but I’ve been paying AAA for a son who hasn’t had a car since December of 2018. I think they just renewed… thanks for the reminder.
When I went through my mom’s accounts after she passed away I tried to cancel what I thought was her Norton account. She had the number on a pad of paper with other important info. When I dialed the number I got a s-- line. Of course I had it on speaker expecting to be on hold for a bit. It went to a robot asking, if you’re a male looking for a female, push one. If you’re a male looking for a male, push two, and so forth. H was in a nearby room working and it quickly got his attention!
I’m not sure if she knew what she was paying for or if she got scammed. I’m thinking the latter TBH. They were enjoying close to $20/month.
I knew she had Norton so googled a number to get them directly. The lady on the other end asked me her name, etc, and then confided, “Oh honey, your mom was paying for coverage that was worthless.” She’d had it for a number of years. I forgot how much per month that was - maybe $10.
I wonder how many other seniors have the same thing happening. Someone calls, talks the talk, and gets them to subscribe.
Anyone who has a landline they want to keep, but it doesn’t include long distance or caller id, I’d urge you to check your provider’s current plans. It’s probably been 15 years ago that I realized they had an “everything” plan for less than I’d been paying. Did the same for my mother (different provider) a few years later. In both cases, they had no problem with switching me, but they definitely weren’t going to come find me to tell me I’d been paying more than I needed to.
We only have a landline because it’s part of our internet/cable bundle. We’ve been told it would cost more to take it off the account. The number was only being used by spam calls, so I unplugged the cord from the modem. Peace and quiet.
Audible. I didn’t even know I had it. I got scammed by Amazon on that one. Canceled it tonight.
But by bit over the past decade we have cancelled subscriptions to seven magazines, and The Wall Street Journal. Our lives were so busy that we didn’t have time to read them. We still subscribe to one national and one state wide news paper. We didn’t feel the WSJ was adding much to our lives but the subscription was expensive.
I’ve always thought that renting a storage unit - except for short term or very specific needs - is admitting that your stuff has won.
Of course, having said that, we haven’t parked a car in our garage … ever.
^^^ I can SO relate to the garage doubling as a pain-in-the-a storage unit. I insist on H keeping one side clear for my car but he has not had his car in the garage for two years. I
Anyone over 65…before you cancel your gym membership, see if your gym participates in Silver Sneakers and if your Medicare supplement plan covers Silver Sneakers. Mine does…gym membership is…free.
@MaineLonghorn would this apply to one of the adults in your household? The Y here participates in Silvet Sneakers too.
Unfortunately we have a basement. No storage facility required, but no incentive to downsize. We recently eliminated Netflix (mail-in version). DH kept it because you could find a lot of obscure titles not found on the internet version. But we have more options than we need with other services, and some of the obscure titles can often be found through our local library.
Eliminated all magazines except professional journals & a local city magazine that’s just fun. Most of the same information can be found online, but it’s just not the same as paging through a printed version.