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Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel
371–380 of 677 posts
Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel
#372I'm surprised literally no one suggested just cancelling the vast majority of your subscription services and cutting ties with unethical companies. The suggestion that poor people need yet more help from the government because they're too dumb, busy, or gullible to know when they're about to get screwed is condescending. The suggestion that the core audience of WSJ and HN needs this is pitiful.
Want to watch a movie? Borrow the DVD from your local library. Want to watch it repeatedly? Buy it off Amazon. Want to read a book? Library. Amazon. AbeBooks. Want to get fit? Go for a hike. Do pushups. Buy a barbell and free weights.
Here's my personal finance plan: Check your bank account daily. Cancel services you don't need. Don't do 30-day trials. Don't sign up for overdraft "protection" at $40 a pop. Use cash if you can't handle plastic, and don't use credit cards. Just don't borrow money, period, if you're not using it to buy a house. Don't let anyone take money out of your checking account but you. If a company screws you, never do business with them again. Pay up front for a year of service and mark when it renews. Write checks before you give out your card numbers.
I know, Stone Age, right? But I like to keep my life simple.
Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel
#373Earlier quoted context omitted.
> My tech-hating mom is currently spending hours, maybe even days setting up billpay through her bank so she doesn't have to give companies her credit card info for subscriptions. She's been burned too many times trying and failing to cancel subscriptions. Why? That's much worse. If anything is going to do a recurring charge to me, I want it to go through a credit card which offers a layer of indirection. I never aut…
> Why? That's much worse. Congratulations, HNer — you're more tech savvy than my mom. Perhaps you're volunteering to help vulnerable seniors like her navigate the Hobbesian nightmare of subscriptions? I applaud your initiative, but if you're new to this, let me caution you: they don't always understand or follow the advice you give them precisely. Even if they are trying their best.
Funny, I guess it can be difficult. I do manage all the accounts and finances for a >>90yr old family member, but it is easier because I manage all of it.
Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel
#374The blame falls also on businesses which take money for services they don't deliver. They often know, and otherwise often could know, when subscribers are not using the service. If you're a business, you should earn your revenue, otherwise you are frauds. This particular behavior is little better than taking money and simply refusing to provide service. Don't tell me it's unintentional - you know what's happening and…
Aren't they just providing access to their service? Different companies provide different billing methods and that's fine!
For example you could pay $20/month for ChatGPT and use it as much or little as you like, or pay $/per API call... But not every company needs to offer both.
Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel
#375Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel
#376Earlier quoted context omitted.
See, I used to buy into this reasoning, but now, I'm not so sure. You can easily say the same thing about someone who does work a high-tech job. You make so much money you stop looking at your bank accounts. There are so many new grads or even late 20s professionals who barely manage their finances beyond 1-2 months. I would argue middle-class folks manage the idea of a "6 month emergency fund" a lot better than thos…
>You can easily say the same thing about someone who does work a high-tech job No you F-ing can't, and if you even remotely think that, you have never experienced poverty. Life's a lot different when your bills are $X this month and working 60 hours only makes you $X-$1000. "Change your expenses" Oh yeah? Am I supposed to WILL cheaper apartments into existence? Am I supposed to magically reduce the cost of my groceri…
Not only that, but people really underestimate how locked into a difficult financial situation you can get. Yeah, you can just get a better job or just move where there are more opportunities, except you need time to make all of that happen; if you're working dogshit hours just to keep the lights on and you have a family to feed, finding the time to go to interviews or to figure out where to live may not be on the table, at least not immediately. Especially if one can't even afford the move itself.
Those whom have reached financial escape velocity, or never had to reach it because of good fortune, often are biased towards believing that their current lifestyle is entirely the result of their own decisions and didn't involve luck.
People should act with personal responsibility, but all the personal responsibility in the world won't make a winner in a losing situation. Anyone can do what Warren Buffet does, but Buffet doesn't risk starvation or having his children live on the street when things don't work out.
Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel
#377I'm using a service called Subly that keeps track of all of my recurring payments and puts them into a database that I can view at a glance. It shows me which day of the month it renews, how much, and to which card or account it will be charged. This includes my annual renewal fees as well. It then shows me what my average monthly expenditure is.
With this I can see that I'm spending roughly $112/month on subscriptions. The whole thing couldn't be much easier.
The service costs $4/month. The irony of that is not lost on me, but the convenience of seeing my recurring monthly charges is worth it for me.
Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel
#378Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same. New York Times always gets me without fail. They always start at something absurd like $3/mo or $5 for six months, and before you know it I’m auditing my statements and see that I’ve been paying $34.99/mo for the last two years. Repeat ad infinitum.
I feel like a great way to solve these is to require confirmations when payments change (maybe with exception of variable rate loans?). If you work at a bank, maybe pitch a notifications system that detects reoccurring transactions that are in fixed amounts that notifies customers when they change. In fact, also pitch giving your customers a fucking list of reoccurring transactions. Seriously, how is so much software…
> If you work at a bank, maybe pitch a notifications system that detects reoccurring transactions that are in fixed amounts that notifies customers when they change.
I get exactly these types of notifications from both Discover and Citi.
Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel
#379The blame falls also on businesses which take money for services they don't deliver. They often know, and otherwise often could know, when subscribers are not using the service. If you're a business, you should earn your revenue, otherwise you are frauds. This particular behavior is little better than taking money and simply refusing to provide service. Don't tell me it's unintentional - you know what's happening and…
Aren't they just providing access to their service? Different companies provide different billing methods and that's fine! For example you could pay $20/month for ChatGPT and use it as much or little as you like, or pay $/per API call... But not every company needs to offer both.
Yes, sometimes you purchase capacity to be able to use something. The provider has to reserve that capacity.
Re: Americans are spending billions on stuff they forget to cancel
#380I'm using a service called Subly that keeps track of all of my recurring payments and puts them into a database that I can view at a glance. It shows me which day of the month it renews, how much, and to which card or account it will be charged. This includes my annual renewal fees as well. It then shows me what my average monthly expenditure is. With this I can see that I'm spending roughly $112/month on subscriptio…
How much does it provider over simply taking the time to add the numbers to a spreadsheet? Does it integrite with bankstatements or automate the prosess in other ways?