Subscription Mania

Is there enough value in the variety of subscription services that exist today?

I will break down for my own benefit how I've racked up 22 subscriptions totaling $165.65 per month. I am probably not alone. I think it is good to do a cross check to ask myself,

Am I really using these services to the best of their ability and are they providing back to me value at least that measures up to the cost of the monthly subscriptions?

As I get older and income increases I have learned more about valuing time vs money, so some things that make my life easier are worth the money, others may not be.

Again this is largely for me, but hopefully this stirs some interest and gets you thinking about your subscriptions more closely.

Cloud/Productivity

iCloud - 50gb plan

• Cost: $0.99/month
• Value: storage of all photos taken on iOS, plus backups for iPhone and iPad. Well worth the money.

Office 365

• Cost: $48.99/year = $4/month
• Value: I use Excel for budgeting, create my resume and cover letter in powerpoint and export as a PDF, and use the included 1TB of OneDrive storage for RAW photo backups. My budget file used to have some API pulls and more complex data integration that it no longer has, but I like Excel and its cross platform interface better than Google Drive which I have also used in the past as a budget spreadsheet. Plus I get a discount through work that makes the price lower.

Adobe Creative Cloud Photography Plan with 1TB

• Cost: $20/month
• Value: Lightroom for photo editing, Photoshop is a bit of an added bonus, 1TB cloud storage required for RAW photos and edits. The value this brings me is the joy I get from capturing photos and editing them. This is a hobby but I love sharing the work that I do on my various platforms. I am still learning both programs, but the cross platform integration here is great, iPhone, iPad, Mac, Windows, I can pick up and edit my photos wherever I am, with whatever device I want.

Drafts Pro

• Cost: $4.99/year = $0.42
• Value: I use drafts to write blog posts, organize my thoughts for tweets, capture LinkedIn posts and use its actions to store and archive everything after it is posted. The tags and workspaces definitely improve the experience, but I would not say this subscription is required. It is nice to recognize and support developers that make programs that I like, in this case that is justified value to me.

Audible

• Cost: $15/month 1 credit plan
• Value: Arguably the subscription that teaches me the most, hence why I put it under productivity. I have enjoyed plenty of audiobooks and turn my commute into a time where I can dive deep into a book of a topic that interests me. I've even taken advice from Ali Abdaal and started listening at increased speed (1.2x works best for me now) to save a little time on each title.

Todoist Pro

• Cost: $36/year = $3/month
• Value: I would not have made it through graduate school without this program. I thought I would throw it away after that, but I have engrained it into my workflow such that it houses personal projects, things to do or upgrade around the house, recurring tasks and much more. It is a really powerful program and I cannot bring myself to switch to something else, despite trying.

VPN Service

• Cost: $92.65/2 years = $3.86/month
• Value: I like having a VPN around for public wifi, traveling, etc. I do use it at home for certain things online, but it is not something I use everyday.

Password Manager

• Cost: $35.88/year = $3/month
• Value: Something I don't think I could live without now that I have it. The particular program that I use works on Mac, windows, chrome, safari, you name it. It can generate passwords for you and automatically saves new logins through its browser extension. Allows me to utilize Touch ID on Mac and Face ID on iOS to login. I never really saw the value of these programs, but went through a large internet security phase last year where I picked up the VPN and the password manager. It also makes updating old passwords or sites with compromised passwords way easier

Google Domain

• Cost: $9/year = $0.75
• Value: Allows me to link my Squarespace account to a domain that I picked. Relatively inexpensive way to use my website as a means to post things that may not exactly fit on social media.

Squarespace

• Cost: $168/year = $14/month
• Value: I am still figuring out how to best use my website, but for now it is on my resume and I post articles that I enjoy writing. It seems like a really low cost way of continuing to develop a new skill(writing) along with managing a website, despite using one of the easiest to use interfaces out there.

Finance

Copilot

• Cost: $70/year = $5.83/month
• Value: Miles better at keeping me looking at finances than Mint ever was. It is a pretty basic interface and limited charting of historical data, but I find that it pulls data more quickly than Mint. I look at this and proactively disposition transactions 3x per week to make sure I have an up to date snapshot of my spending habits. I recently tried to switch back to Mint and just something about its interface does not jive with my personal preference. I stopped looking at my finances so closely and have since gone back to Copilot. It is a small team of devs that are responsive to requests and provide live updates on features requested by users.

Fuelly MPG Tracker

• Cost: $8/year = $0.66/month
• Value: I don't know what this subscription even gets me, no ads, more features, I really don't know. All I know is I use the Fuelly app at least weekly when I fill up my car to track MPG and fuel cost.

TradingView

• Cost: $108/year = $9/month
• Value: Amazing charting service with notifications and its own programming language for complex automation. I don't use this one to its full potential, but I did when I was really into higher frequency trading. I have shifted to more long term focused investments now and have cancelled auto-renewal on this one. The free plan should get me by just fine, but I highly recommend the site. They have made plenty of awesome feature updates in the past few years and the interface is the easiest I have found to look and understand chart trends.

Motley Fool Epic bundle

• Cost: $256/year = $21.33/month
• Value: A great stock picking service, I really like their logic and long term mindset. They find companies that I like and provide good explanations to the bear and bull case behind their picks. That said, the price compared to how much I am currently investing(a much smaller amount while paying off debt) does not make this worth it for me. Auto renew is off. I will come back to this service in the future.

Health

Apple Fitness+

• Cost: $80/year = $6.66/month
• Value: This in my opinion is an insane value. This is shared across my family in the Apple ecosystem so me and my fiancee have access to the app. The sheer volume of content they have is amazing. Sure it is not usually as intense of a workout as something I would program myself, but that also keeps me un-injured and working more volume overall due to the consistency it drives within me.

Edge Fitness

• Cost: $10/month
• Value: I'll admit this one is not providing enough value to keep the $10/month cost. I have been to this gym only twice, as I prefer working out at home since Covid hit and I purchased a bike, dumbbells, kettle bells and Apple Fitness+. I wanted a place to go when I wanted to squat, deadlift or do heavier lifts with equipment that I do not have space for in my basement. I have not made time to work this into my schedule in a sustainable way though.

Calm

• Cost: $70/year = $5.83/month
• Value: Another one in my top tier list. This app definitely helps me be more cognizant of my emotions, as well as noticeably better sleep. You can't put a price tag on emotional well being that leads to better physical well being.

Fun

Apple Arcade

• Cost: $49.99/year = $4.16/month
• Value: Ability to game anywhere, especially when traveling, and ad free games. I regularly play solitaire and a few other Arcade titles, plus this sub also shares in my family so everyone else gets to use it as well.

Xbox Games Pass

• Cost: $15/month
• Value: Tied to Xbox Series X purchase, as only way to thwart bots was the 0% "loan" through Microsoft. I don't play many games on the Xbox but this is another mega value in my opinion as it comes with EA Play and Xbox Games Pass PC which I have utilized to play Halo, Forza Horizon 5, MLB the Show to name a few.

Apple TV+

• Cost: $49.99/year = $4.16/month
• Value: While the selection is not as large as Netflix, Apple TV makes up in the quality department. Ted Lasso and The Morning Show are my two favorites, but I have been hearing good things about some of the other programs as well. I thought this was worth it after using the trial period that came with the Apple TV.

Amazon Prime

• Cost: $120/year = $10/month
• Value: Who doesn't love ordering things to show up two days (or less) later? While their prices have crept up, both for the service and for physical goods, I still use Amazon for a lot of household items, tech products, etc. For us, the closest BestBuy is about 25 minutes away, along with most other big box stores so most times it is just easier to order from Amazon than make a 40 minute or more round trip to pick up one specific item.

Youtube Premium

• Cost: $8/month
• Value: No ads. This is a carryover from my android days back when the Google Play Music All Access subscription was around. They have now converted that to YouTube music but packaged in there is the Youtube premium which is worth every penny. I hate ads. I often forget YouTube has ads until I am around someone without premium trying to show a YouTube video to others. I watch a lot of YouTube, well worth it.

Notable mentions & indirect payments

Included with my Verizon plan

• Disney+
• Hulu
• ESPN+
• Apple Music

All this said, I’ve identified $40/month of subscriptions that I am currently not getting enough value out of and have disabled auto-renew. The Motley Fool, TradingView and Edge Fitness, will be gone once their current billing period is over. I can highly recommend doing this exercise if you want to save some money every month or are just curious about how many subscriptions you have that you may not realize the cost to value proposition just is not there.