Latest / The Daily Writer / Clear the Clutter: Paid Services & Subscriptions

Transcript

Clear the Clutter: Paid Services & Subscriptions · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're continuing our Clear the Clutter series, and this is the second to last entry in this series.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: We've got one more to go, and I really appreciate you hanging in there with me.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: So far, we've talked about cleaning dirt and grime, we've talked about clearing desk drawers and piles of paper, we've talked about getting rid of books that you're not going to read, cleaning up your computer files, cleaning up your email and digital subscriptions that you don't use.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: None of these steps are going to probably save you money directly, but today's challenge is different because you're going to look at the paid services and subscriptions that you no longer use.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: As somebody who runs a membership group, which is, of course, the Daily Rider Club, I love getting recurring income.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Recurring income is a fantastic business model because people continue to pay you month after month or year after year if it's an annual subscription.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: And as a consumer, I appreciate it also because it spreads out automated expenses into smaller chunks.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: But the flip side of that is that it's also really easy to stay subscribed to services or tools that you don't actually use, especially if you don't pay attention to your monthly expenses.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: So here's your assignment, and this is very simple, it's very doable.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to go back through your last two months of bank or credit card charges.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have a business checking account or credit card, do it for both business and for personal.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to make a list of any recurring subscriptions or services that you don't use, and then either cancel those or see if you can get a cheaper version if it's something that you still want to keep.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: This goes for magazine subscriptions, streaming services, professional memberships, digital tools and apps, you name it.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to look at everything that you're spending money on.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Pretend that you are going into a meeting where you have to justify all those expenses to your boss.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can't justify that expense in your own mind, if you feel like you know, if you're going to a meeting and the boss is going to say, why are you spending money on this?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you can't really justify it to him or her, then it's probably something that needs to go.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So in going through this exercise myself just a few weeks ago, I actually canceled four items.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: These were, these were the four that I could think of.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think I did actually more than this, but these are the ones that I can think of sort of quickly.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Number one was an$8 a month subscription to a writing group membership.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great group.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: I just wasn't really using it.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Number two was a$50 a month subscription to a writing resource that I wasn't using.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Number three was a$15 a month subscription to a streaming service, one of the, you know,$850 streaming services that are out there these days.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And number four was a$99 a year subscription to a mind mapping app that I had actually purchased for a client project over a year ago.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: The client wanted me to buy this app because they had a bunch of stuff in this app that I needed.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: I bought it and I just forgot that I had subscribed to it.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's really easy to do, by the way, with those year subscriptions.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: You subscribe to something on an annual basis, then they charge you again the next year, and you totally have forgotten about it.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So make a list somewhere of those annual subscriptions.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's really helpful.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So just by going through these four things, I saved 80 bucks a month, which is almost$1,000 a year, just by canceling things that I wasn't using anyway.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: So these are all good things.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: I just wasn't getting any value from them for what I would was needing right now.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now keep in mind that you don't have to always cancel something entirely.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oftentimes, when you try to cancel a subscription service of some kind, you can get a discount.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we've all been through this where you try to cancel something and then they'll say, Oh, we'll give you 30% off if you stay, or you know, you'll get it a certain percentage off for a certain length of time or whatever it is.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you just contact the service or the app's customer support or customer service and get a discount, they'll give it to you as well, oftentimes.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, likewise, you can often downgrade a subscription to a lower tier if you still want to keep it, but you don't really need the version that you're currently using, or you don't need as much of it.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: So all these are these are pretty basic tips really for reducing expenses.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And this really isn't a finance podcast, but the reality is that finances have a lot to do with your success in life.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: They have a lot to do with what options you have.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And money determines a lot of things in life.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, maybe determines most things in life in terms of what kind of a car we drive, where we can live, what kind of vacations we can take, what we can invest in with our business, who we can hire, how much we can spend on a book launch, and many, many, many different kinds of things that are related directly and indirectly to your writing and your writing business.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Writing isn't just about the words and the content.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to have a writing business, you've got to think like a business owner.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you can easily give yourself a raise if you cancel services and subscriptions that you're not using.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: I would encourage you to be ruthless with this.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not using something, don't continue paying for it.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: The person you're paying might enjoy it, but you're just wasting money if you're spending money on something that you're not going to use.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure and look through those.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, here's today's challenge.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure and look through those past two months worth of bank or credit card statements and make a list of the subscriptions and services that you're not using, then cancel those and downgrade those.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I would be curious to hear how much you save per month or per year by doing exactly that.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Just you can let me know.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Shoot me an email anytime, Kent at dailywriterlife.com.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm super curious what you've decided to cancel and how much money you're going to save.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: It would be kind of fun to hear from a few of you on that.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: All right, my friend, thanks so much for listening as always, and I will see you on tomorrow's episode.