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STACK THE F*CK UP

How Do I Do a Subscription Audit and Actually Cancel Things?

By Joshua S. Brogley · August 17, 2026

Twenty minutes, one sitting, phone in hand. Pull twelve months of bank and card statements, list every recurring charge with its monthly and yearly cost, mark each keep, cut, or downgrade, and cancel the cuts before you close the app. Not tomorrow. Stack The F*ck Up runs this on Day 8, and one reader found 1,900 dollars a year in subscriptions they had forgotten existed.

Twelve months, not one

A single statement misses annual renewals, which are the expensive ones. Pull the full year and sort recurring charges by yearly cost. The top three are usually a surprise.

Keep, cut, downgrade

Three columns, no fourth. Keep is used weekly and would be missed. Cut is anything else. Downgrade covers the plans you use at ten percent of capacity. Decide fast; the point is the cancel button, not the deliberation.

Cancel before you close the app

Every intention that survives past the session dies. The Day 8 quest is explicit: the audit is not done until the cancellations are done. Do the awkward calls and the hidden menu-diving right then.

Put the leak money to work

The Stack move after any leak audit is to route the freed money into the automatic slice on payday, so it builds the buffer instead of evaporating. That is the whole book in one motion: find it, fire it, redirect it. Related: how to build the buffer.

Stack The F*ck Up

365 days of no-bullsh*t money moves. Know your three numbers, fire the leaks, build the buffer, sign the house rules.

Buy it on Amazon See the book

How much do people typically save from a subscription audit?

Commonly hundreds a year, sometimes far more; the reader quote inside Stack The F*ck Up found 1,900 dollars annually. The amount matters less than the habit: leaks come back, so the audit repeats.

How often should I audit my subscriptions?

Every monthly statement in the Stack system, quickly, and a full twelve-month sweep once a year. Free trials and annual renewals are where the money hides.

written by the author, at the kitchen table, after work.