I Forgot to Cancel It (And Paid for it Anyway)
This is not something I am particularly proud of. I meant to cancel YouTube TV as soon as college football season ended. I was dead set on this. I imagine I said something to the effect, “Alrighty, first thing tomorrow, I will pause the subscription.”
And guess what? I did not do that thing. Instead, I totally forgot about it and had a recurring $84 charge running for about 4 months. Surely me, a financial advisor, wouldn’t be so careless, no?
I like to believe that I “practice what I preach.” This is literally the kind of thing I tell other people to stay on top of. Recurring charges, small leaks, or that gym membership you got on January 1st that you are still totally using.
Days passed. Weeks. Then months. The thought disappeared entirely, which is surprising considering how confident I was that I’d handle it. It just…left. Replaced by everything else that felt more important in the moment.
Until one morning, while reviewing our budget, I saw the charge, as if I were staring into the eyes of a Lovecraftian horror. I keep looking, I find another. I don’t stop. This subscription had its way with our wages for nearly 4 months.
I was sick.
No games, no reason to open the app, no value being extracted whatsoever. Just a punch in the gut, and a horrific reminder that I had, in fact, done nothing about something I fully intended to remedy.
That’s the part that matters. Not this specific subscription. Not the $80-something charge. Just how easy it is to overlook something obvious.
Here’s what you should take away from this.
At some point this week, take a few minutes and actually look through your transactions. Not just a quick glance. Actually sit down and look for recurring subscriptions. Specifically those you have no use for, like those free trials that weren’t so free.
If I can miss something this obvious, there’s a decent chance something forgotten is sitting in your account too. We’re all human.
I canceled mine finally and it took less than two minutes.
Which is exactly why I should’ve done it sooner.