Let me paint you a word picture.
It's 2023.
You're on the couch, and someone on TV says "start your free trial today!"
You, a genius, think: "I'll cancel before it charges me."
Real quick... did you cancel?
Nobody WANTS to donate $14.99 a month to a streaming service they haven't opened since lockdown.
It just kinda... happens.
And your budget never really gets murdered by one big purchase. Instead, it gets stabbed 365 times by tiny little ones you forget about.
And subscriptions are the stabbiest. They don't even need you present, those f*ckers'll stab you while you sleep.
Let's do some math:
Five forgotten subscriptions at roughly $12 each = $60/month.
$60/month = $720/year.
FOR. NOTHING.
Not "for stuff you enjoy." For stuff you forgot exists.
Here's your homework.
Pull up your bank statements.
I’ll wait.
Scroll the last 60 days and write down every recurring charge.
Yes, every one. Yes, including the app that adds dog ears to your photos.
“Caleb, I don’t have time!” You've already watched a 40-minute video essay about a celebrity feud from 2014 and erased your cookies from your last search.
You have the time.
No excuses.
Sort them into three piles:
Use, Forgot, Lie.
Use = you opened it this month.
Forgot = you flinched when you saw the charge.
Lie = “I’m gonna get back into it.”
(The gym app. You know the one.)
Kill everything in Forgot and Lie.
Tonight.
Not “this weekend.”
Weekend-you is a flake and we both know it.
Cancel, screenshot the confirmation, move on.
Rotate, don’t accumulate.
One streaming service at a time.
Binge it, cancel it, move to the next.
Same shows. A third of the cost.
Is it silly? Extremely.
Does it work? Also extremely.
Book one “re-shop night” a year.
Phone plan, insurance, internet — prices creep on people who never call.
One annual audit night beats twelve months of paying the “I didn’t think about it” tax.
Here’s the thread connecting all of these: subscriptions bet on your amnesia.
Every one of these companies has a spreadsheet projecting exactly how many of you will forget.
Beat the spreadsheet.
And that $60/month you just clawed back?
Invested at boring, normal market returns, that’s roughly $30k over 20 years. From canceling things you weren’t using.
One sincere thing before you go: you’re not bad with money.
You’re busy, and an entire industry is betting on busy.
(You’re also a little lazy. It’s fine. Me too.)
Congratulations. You found a leak.
Now let's plug it.
Taquitos,
Caleb “Subscription Reaper” Hammer
P.S. If five ghost charges made you flinch, imagine what the rest of your finances look like under the hood.
Stop guessing, and get your Hammer Score.
It's free, takes 2 minutes, and it'll tell you exactly what to focus on to get to the next financial level.
