Quick question. How many streaming services are you paying for right now? Not the ones you watch. The ones you pay for. If you had to stop and think, you’re probably paying for at least one too many.
Subscriptions are built to be forgotten. Each one is small, it renews itself, and the money leaves your account a bit at a time. Add up the streaming, the phone, the broadband, the apps and the insurance you’ve doubled up on and it can easily come to a few hundred pounds a year. Before Christmas is a good time to deal with it, since that’s when the January bills get worked out.
Start with the bank statement, not your memory
Your memory isn’t a reliable record of what you pay for. Your bank statement is. Download the last three months as a spreadsheet or PDF and go through every regular payment: direct debits, standing orders and recurring card payments.
Three months matters. Some subscriptions are quarterly, and annual ones only show up once a year, so look at the past 12 months for big round sums you don’t recognise. Most banking apps can now list your direct debits and repeat card payments in one place, which saves time.
Then check the app stores. Anything you signed up to on an iPhone or Android phone is billed through Apple or Google, so it can show up on your statement under their name rather than the service’s. Each phone has a subscriptions page in its account settings. Look at it. You may get a surprise.
Put each payment in one of three groups: keep, cut, or haggle.
How much am I really spending on streaming?
The sums are dull but they work. Three services at about £12 a month each is £36 a month, which is £432 a year. Over five years that’s £2,160, all on a sofa you’re mostly asleep on by half ten.
The way round it is rotation, not giving up TV. Most streaming services are monthly with no minimum term. Pick one, watch the series everyone’s talking about, cancel, then move to the next. Your watch list will still be there when you come back. Two months a year of each service instead of twelve is a big saving for no real loss.
Also check which tier you’re on. Plenty of households pay for a premium 4K plan and watch it on a laptop, or pay for four screens when two people live in the house. Downgrading takes a couple of minutes and you can upgrade again whenever you want.
Look for services you get free as well. Some phone contracts, broadband packages and bank accounts include a streaming subscription, and plenty of people pay for the same service on top. You can’t watch the same thing twice at once, however hard you try.
A subscription you’ve forgotten about isn’t a small cost. It’s a big cost paid in instalments.
Am I overpaying for my phone and broadband?
Quite possibly, if your contract has ended. On a handset contract, the monthly price pays for both the airtime and the phone. Once the phone is paid off, a SIM-only deal is often a fraction of the cost. Under Ofcom rules, your provider has to tell you when your contract is about to end and show you its best deals, so read that email rather than deleting it.
Look at your data use too. Your phone’s settings will show how much you use each month. If you’re paying for unlimited data and using a few gigabytes, mostly over home Wi-Fi, you’re paying for something you don’t need.
Price rises work differently now as well. Since 17 January 2025, Ofcom has required broadband, mobile and pay-TV providers to state any price rises in new contracts in pounds and pence, rather than as inflation plus a percentage. That means you can see what you’ll pay over the whole contract when you sign up. Use it to compare deals properly instead of looking only at the first-year price.
Switching is easier than it used to be. For mobile, text PAC to 65075 to keep your number or STAC to 75075 if you don’t need it, and your current provider has to reply straight away. For broadband, the One Touch Switch system lets your new provider handle the move. Often just phoning to say you’re leaving gets you a better offer. If you’re on Universal Credit, Pension Credit or some other benefits, ask about social tariffs, which are cheaper broadband deals many providers offer but don’t advertise much.
Am I paying for the same insurance twice?
This is where the money is easiest to miss. Duplicate cover is common because policies come bundled with other things. A packaged bank account might include worldwide travel insurance, phone insurance and breakdown cover. Your home contents policy may already cover gadgets away from the home. Your car insurance may come with legal expenses cover that you also have on your home policy.
Find the policy documents, or the account terms for any packaged bank account, and list what each one covers. If your bank account’s monthly fee is paying for travel cover you also buy separately every year, one of them has to go. And if you’re keeping the packaged account for the travel insurance, check the age limits and any medical conditions it excludes. Those terms often get less generous as you get older.
Since 1 January 2022, FCA rules have banned home and motor insurers from charging renewing customers more than a new customer would pay through the same channel. That stopped loyalty penalties, but it didn’t make your renewal price competitive. You still need to shop around at every renewal, and a different insurer may well be cheaper.
How do I cancel something that won’t let me go?
Most services have a cancel button, though some hide it well. If a company makes it hard, you have options. For a recurring card payment, you can ask your bank or card provider to stop it, and they have to. For a direct debit, you can cancel through your bank, but tell the company too so you don’t end up owing money under a contract you’re still in.
Things should get better. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 includes new rules on subscription contracts, including reminders before renewals and a simple way to leave. The government has said these won’t come into force before 2026, so for now you’ll have to do the chasing yourself.
One last tip: put a reminder in your calendar the day you start any free trial. Free trials are designed to turn into paid subscriptions without you noticing.
In short
Download three months of bank statements, check the subscriptions pages on your phone, and sort every regular payment into keep, cut or haggle. Swap streaming services in and out instead of paying for them all at once, move to SIM-only once your handset is paid off, and look for insurance you’re paying for twice, especially through packaged bank accounts. An hour’s work can save you hundreds of pounds a year, and since Ofcom’s January 2025 rules, contract price rises are at least easier to compare.
Sources
Midcent Money
Andrew Ingram writes about money for men 45 and over – the years when retirement starts to feel real and the decisions get bigger. Pensions and retirement planning, investing, savings, mortgages and tax: what changed, what it means for your plans and what's worth doing about it. No hype, nothing to sell, and a clear steer on when it pays to get personal advice.
One of Midcent's writers. Spotted something? Write to andrew@midcent.uk.
