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Culling Our Subscription Services

Friday, February 24, 2023


A "fun" challenge for you. Go through your bank statement and write down just how much you are spending on subscription services. They add up so quickly. Especially when most of them seem so cheap or insignificant. The reality is most, if not all, of these services are luxuries and not necessary! I know I like to try new subscription boxes all the time, and often share about them here on the blog! But, I want you to know that you are the gatekeeper of your home and wallet! So, never feel pressured to sign up for anything, just because I make it seem like something you might want. 

Here's where we've landed on subscriptions. I'm not including things like Microsoft 365 - this is solely boxes or other services we don't use for work, etc. 

Saving Money Tips: Cutting Subscriptions

Subscriptions We Are Keeping

Disney + = $11/month

Disney + is the only streaming service we pay for. Obviously, we love all the nostalgic Disney movies, but we really love all of the new shows. Specifically the Star Wars shows! Both of us totally agree we are keeping this monthly subscription.

Peloton App = $12.99/month

We absolutely love the Peloton work outs. We first signed up for it when we got our exercise bike. I have a phone mount on the bike and easily adapt the Peloton rides to a non-Pelton bike. But, we actually fell in love with the other classes they offer! We use it far more for strength and barre classes than the rides at this point. We share an account and I think this is totally worth the price. Especially since we don't have a gym membership and all the basic equipment at home. 

Spotify Family = $15.99/month

I specifically signed up for Spotify on a beach trip a few summers ago. It's just so nice to have commercial free music. Now, I use it for podcasts as well as running playlists. We upgraded to the family plan to share with my sister and her husband. They use it just as much as we do, otherwise I'd go down to the 2 person $13.99 plan. 

Plan To Eat = $40/year

**I have this post written and scheduled in advance, so since I typed this out Plan To Eat sent out an email that their prices are rising this year!

I recently shared a meal planning post where I sang the praises of Plan To Eat! I love this service. I use it to store all of my recipes, make meal plans, and generate shopping lists. It's invaluable. Especially if I'm busy, Blake can easily pull up the app and see what we have planned for dinner and get started cooking. They always do a big Black Friday sale on their yearly membership and I plan to renew it then to get my year for half price. (I have a free trial for Plan To Eat if you'd like to try it for yourself!)

Athena Club = $13/ My Order

This is a razor subscription service. I love my razor so much! I skip it all the time because my blades last forever. I may have 8 refills under my sink as we speak, so even though I'm 'keeping' this subscription going, I won't have to make an order for quite awhile. This is by far the cheapest way to get razor blades. Unless you are like Blake and get an old fashioned safety razor, in which the blades are pennies.

Subscriptions On The Chopping Block

Butcher Box = $169/Box

This subscription is brand new! I have to say, I really like getting this box. The meat quality is so so good, and gosh is it convenient. It's not a necessity though, which is why it's on the chopping block. However, I can push out the deliveries forever if I want so that's what I'm doing for now, and maybe make an order once in awhile. (I have a $30 coupon for you if you want to try it!)

Grove Collaborative = Varies/Month  VIP=$19.99/Year

If you are shocked to see this on the chopping block, you aren't alone. I LOVE Grove, and often post about my monthly orders. Here's the deal, I'm conflicted. I signed up for this when we lived in a small town and getting certain brands there was very difficult. I had to wait until I went to a bigger city to make a Target run to stock up on the things I liked. So to get it in the mail each month was awesome. Plus, the Grove brand products are fabulous. As a VIP member I get so many free gifts monthly and yearly. But, now I can get most of these items along with my groceries locally. My Grove orders are usually pretty big, so it's one of those things I think I could break up throughout the month instead of one big order. I dunno! I can skip these orders any time, so my thought is to maybe make them quarterly for the Grove specific items? Like, I said it's on the chopping block, but I can't decide yet. 
(If you are new to Grove, you can use my link for a free gift set)

**I actually wrote a post in 2017 about what we were subscribed to, which was funny to read back. We are not subscribed to a single thing there anymore. Except! That was the first time I wrote about Grove! I had just signed up. **

Legal Shield = $30/Month

This is a service that's one of those nice to have things. In fact, we just used it battling Comcast. That's a whole story, but they were hassling us over a big charge from our move that we were not responsible for. We went around and around with them for a year over it. Legal Shield helped us get it resolved swiftly and everything was made right. It's great what a strongly worded letter from a lawyer can do. So, honestly this has paid for itself! They also helped us get our Wills done. It's honestly a great service. But, it's also not totally necessary, so we are debating on keeping it. 

Walmart + = $98/Year

Walmart + is kinda like Amazon Prime. It gives you free shipping and a few other perks like Paramount+ and  discounts on gas at their stations. We got it for the free grocery delivery. It's more than paid for itself and we've only had it for half a year. But, I can also do grocery car pick up for free, so it's one of those things we don't' really need. It's free delivery sure, but then you have to tip the driver. And our deliveries end up at our neighbors house half the time and we have to 'deliver' them to ourselves, haha. ($20 towards Walmart+ delivery if you want to give it a go!)

Duolingo = $84.99/Year

Ugh, I still fee guilty about signing up for this. I'm on a close to 400 day streak on Duolingo! I use it every day and the free version got on my nerves after awhile. This renews in the fall, so I'm going to full enjoy it until then, but I'm seriously thinking about just doing the free version after that. 

Car Wash = $19.99/Month

I'm sure you are looking at this thinking this is an obvious one that seems *extra*. And it is! But, it's so nice. This is the car wash with the free vacuums. They totally swindled me into signing up, but since the wash I was going to buy that day was already $20, I figured I might as well get the rest of the month free. But, I know I'm never going to be able to track down a worker to cancel this. Just kidding, I know I can cancel obviously, but it's one of those that I have to go out of my way to do. Plus, it's so nice to have! 

Book of the Month = $16.99/Month

Book of the Month is such a treat if you are book lover. I can skip orders at any time, so I feel like that's what I'm going to do for the time being. I love getting these books, but it's an unnecessary expense. I love the library and save literal thousands a year using it! For now, I'm just going to push out my deliveries and see if I can ask for a gift card to keep up this treat. (It's def worth getting that first book for $5!)


Subscriptions We Are Canceling

Gobble = $90/3 Meals a Week

Ah, this was a sad day. Gobble is by far my favorite of the meal kit boxes. The dishes are so good and all of them are very quick and mostly one pan meals. For one thing, I was tired of monitoring my account to make sure I didn't get an accidental delivery. With food prices rising, I just knew I'd do better budgeting meal planning and trying to maximize meals per ingredient. That said, totally love Gobble and I might be back one day. Sometimes it's just nice not to worry about dinner. 

Kindle Unlimited = $9.99/Month

I signed up for this on a promo. It was $4.99 for 3 months. And, I absolutely used it! But, the book selection is just okay, and I did not feel that it was worth $10 a month. Especially with how often I get library books and audiobooks. If they do a promo again in the future I might sign up for a month or two and read a bunch and cancel again.

Zoom = $15/Month

We used the pro Zoom account all the time during the pandemic. But, now the free version will do just fine and I'm happy to keep my $15 a month. 

Revive Essential Oil Seasonal Boxes = $55/Quarter

Love Revive! You may have noticed I haven't shared one of their seasonal boxes in a while. That's because I canceled it! It was fun, but not needed. Some of the oils I got in the seasonal boxes were fantastic, but most of them were just okay. I was finding that ILOVED just one oil in each box, and then the others went in the drawer, or I would use them in cleaning products or something just to use them up. I still make orders from time to time but I'm only ordering my favorites. 

Couch to 10K App = $5.99/3 months

10 out of 10 to the C25K App! I love it and it got me back in running shape. And it's free! But, to use the 10k version you have to subscribe. It's still great and useful. But, when I'm done with my half marathon in April I will be canceling this app. 

Florida State Park Pass = $120/Year

It's a personal goal of mine to visit every single State Park here in Florida at some point. We've done many!! For the past 2 years we have purchased the annual family pass that gets your whole group in for "free" to each State Park. We definitely visit several parks a year, but the price of this went up and we both agree it's not worth it for us to renew. We will just pay al a carte as we go in the future. 

Local Beer Society = $50/Year

Blake and I love going to breweries! We have a local group of beer lovers that created a membership to get a special discount or freebie at all the various local breweries in our area. It was a really cool thing. And, honestly we shared it with my parents! So it probably did pay for itself with all the random discounts over the year. But, this just falls into the unnecessary category. My dad can't even drink beer unless it's gluten free now, so it's definitely not going to get used like it was. 

To make a long post longer, haha, I just wanted to summarize all of this by encouraging you just to list out your subscriptions and see where your money is going. These all truly add up, and it's a great thing to reevaluate more frequently! 
-Kristen

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Hello!

Hi friends! I'm Kristen, and this is the Life and Style of an early 30's Floridian living the Best Life Ever, with her husband and three pugs. Runner | Avid Reader | Small Shop Owner

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