Over the past several years the growth of subscription boxes has been expanding like wildfire. Oftentimes people will scare away from subscription services for fear of completely forgetting about them and wasting their money.
Others love the ease of purchase and forgetting. Below we have outlined various things you should be thinking about when considering if finally subscribing to that subscription service you’ve been hearing about is worth it.
We understand that in the bad old days of AOL, getting out of your subscription to the service was a near-impossible task. Their retention tactics were legendary and infamous. To this day, many are frightened off by the very thought of a subscription of any kind regardless of how reputable and well-reviewed the company is. If you are revisiting the idea of signing up for subscriptions, here is what you need to know about the pros and cons of subscription services:
Subscriptions Are Too Easy to Set and Forget
If you are into life hacks, one of the best is to set timers, reminders, and calendar events for all of your subscriptions, even the ones you know you will want to renew. One of the biggest cons of the subscription lifestyle is ending up with a plethora of renewing subscriptions that get out of control in a hurry. Many pay annual, monthly, or even weekly subscription fees for services they forgot they had.
Scam apps on app stores count on this. They often hook you into subscriptions that renew weekly. You thought you were getting a trial at one price and ended up with a recurring subscription at another. Whenever you set up a new subscription, set a reminder on any of your connected devices to let you know a few days before the subscription is set to renew. That way, you can reevaluate your choices. Pro tip: if you are trying something that you know you will not renew, cancel the subscription immediately after activating the free trial. If that service ends immediately, you don't want to deal with that company anyway. Consider yourself lucky.
Subscriptions Keep You from Running out of Important Things
Many pharmacies automatically deliver your medicine every month when you are getting close to running out. That can be a real and literal lifesaver depending on the prescription. The last thing you need is to run out of a medication that is keeping you alive one dose at a time.
Other products don’t rise to the level of life and death but are very important nonetheless. Services that deliver pet food and other supplies fall into that category. Diaper services are also great because as a new parent who uses cloth diapers, you are going to need to get the used ones cleaned and keep fresh diapers coming. This is not the sort of thing you want to have to think about every month. You do want to set it and forget it. You could be up to your neck in a very messy business if you did not have that service automated. Subscriptions help us to avoid forgetting important things.
Another great subscription to look into is a coffee subscription. Signing up for a service like this removes the task of needing to visit the grocery store or that one coffee shop to obtain your morning blend. This subscription is one you will most likely want to renew because of the freedom you have to customize it and make it your own. You are never stuck with the same old thing. You also have the ability to put your subscriptions on hold and pick them up again when you like. That is one of the nicer aspects of the best subscription services. You never feel like you are locked in.
Subscriptions Can Be Swapped in and out As Needed
Subscriptions for HBO, Showtime, Encore, Netflix, Prime Video, Apple TV, and others start to add up very fast. That doesn’t even include game subscriptions. The trick is not to pay for them all at once. Only pay for the one or two services that have the content you are binging at the time. When new content comes out on another service that you want to see, pause one subscription and renew another. You can’t watch all the great content all at once. You just need to rotate them in and out like players on a sports team during a game. Consuming entertainment is more like a marathon than a sprint.
Manage your subscription anxiety by setting alarms so that you don’t forget them. Find subscriptions services for important things you can’t afford to be without. And rotate your entertainment subscriptions so that you are not paying for them all at once. By doing these things, you can eliminate the cons of subscriptions and maximize the pros.
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