Subscriptions: Keep or Cancel?

[nickr]

I’ve become somewhat of a minimalist, and subscription services are an area where I’ve made some hard choices.

Some of you mind find these trivial, but the fees do add up, and I find too many subscriptions become a burden on my mind.

In the past year I’ve cancelled:

Netflix (¥12,000 a year), Apple Music (¥10,000), Headspace (¥4,800), DownDog Yoga (¥4,500), Simply Guitar (¥10,000), Duolingo (¥8,000), and Satori Reader (¥10,000).

So that’s almost ¥60,000 a year. My remaining subscriptions come to ¥8,500 a year.

Not a subscription, but I also used to drink a can of happoshu beer every night. Then one day, when I was taking out the monthly unburnable rubbish, I was shocked by the 60 empty cans my wife and I were going through. I decided then to switch to water and save some money.

My wife still drinks her daily happoshu.

[RetireJapan]

I've got a few of those (also jiu-jitsu club and a bunch of fees for my granddaughter's 習い事).

At the end of the day, are they cost-effective in making you happy/improving your life?

[mule96]

Imo the subscription model will be one of the next debt traps that people can fall into. I keep track of all subscriptions and also try to keep it at a minimal level (but when a pregnant wife wants BBC over WOWOW, you cant do much against it )

[adamu]

I also used to drink a can of happoshu beer every night.

It might be useful to put a number on that habit. 2 cans at 150 yen each is 110k per year. But giving up regular drinking probably gives you a few more years to live too though, not sure if you can put a price on that

[Beaglehound]

All I have is Amazon music for the Echo smart speaker. And that’s only a few hundred yen a month.

[pfdsa]

The subscriptions that I have are: Netflix (basic plan: 11,880 per year), Google Drive storage to store the photos/videos (100GB plan: 2,500 per year), and Costco for the cheap diesel and occasional shopping (4,840 per year).
Regarding the drinking, used to drink a beer everyday too, but nowadays only drink on friday and saturday. They sure taste good after a long week

In my opinion, if those subscriptions make you happy and are cost-effective, don't see the need to cancel them.

[beanhead]

Netflix
DAZN
Amazon Prime
Amazon Music (the paid version with more songs)
just cancelled WOWOW - needed them for a sports tournament this summer.
Mrs Head has iCloud for photos as well...
(Apple TV - free for 1 year. Doesn't seem to have enough content to warrant paying when it expires.)

Probably room for reduction in there somewhere.

[JimNasium]

I’m sharing my Netflix password with two other people and we split the costs, so that really helps with the fees. The only other subscription I have is with Amazon Prime that comes with my credit card (although I am paying for it through my yearly fee). I’m really not a fan of subscriptions at all, so I avoid them as much as possible.

[Cracaphat]

Got rid of the newspaper subscription 10+ years ago.Moved on from Apple TV two months ago after the free year finished.The only good program was Ted Lasso. Have Costco and Prime,and that's about it.

[sugus]

- Costco 4840 yen / year
- Amazon Prime 4900 yen / year
- Netflix 17880 yen / year, 1490 yen/month
- Gym 35640 yen / year, 2970 yen / month
- Spotify 11760 yen / year, 980 yen / month

Also will sign up for iCloud storage 50GB for 1560 yen / year, 130 yen / month

As long as you're happy, and making your life better like RetireJapan said, it will be money well invested in yourself.