Recently, in the last five year’s or so, I have seen an increase in the popularity of software as a service (SAAS), and business tools that are a recurring expense. It is really easy for business owners to sign up for a tool and use it for a few months and a lot of times I see that they are really beneficial to the business owner for that time, then a few months later they are still paying for a subscription that they no longer use. Sounds a lot like my gym membership from this year! I was really consistent and went to the gym four times a week March through the beginning of June, then summer came, and it was really nice outside, so I stopped going to the gym, but I ended up paying for the membership through September. Luckily for me the membership was only $10 a month, still $40 wasted.
I recommend to business owners that they go through their recurring subscriptions at least every other month. Pick out what they are using and cancel what they are not. The costs of these recurring expenses can add up a lot faster than most realize. For example, let’s say as a business owner you find three subscriptions that you no longer use, one was $10, one was $30, and one was $50. By canceling those subscriptions, you just saved yourself $90 per month, which doesn’t sound like a big deal, but over the next six months that would have costed $540 for what you don’t even use. Or $1,080 over the next year. Also imagine if these subscriptions were per user, maybe the $10 subscription had 4 users. That would change your totals to $120, $720, and $1,440 respectively.
Monitoring your recurring expenses can really save money in your business, especially as you look at things over the next six to twelve months. Have you reviewed your recurring expenses lately?
