I cut about £90 a month of subscriptions in an hour. Here's my checklist.

Dereck Tafuma · 5 October 2026 · 4 min read

I've taught Physics, worked as a nurse and built things with my hands. In every one of those jobs, the boring checks are what save you. Tonight I finally did the boring check on my own subscriptions, and it took about an hour.

I didn't do it alone. I sat down with an AI assistant and went through every recurring payment, one line at a time. The total came to about £90 a month, or roughly £1,080 a year. Most of it was money going out for things I'd stopped using, or was paying for twice.

What I found

Some of it was a bit embarrassing, honestly.

• A cashback/credit club I didn't remember joining, at £19.99 a month. Cancelled.
• Evernote, billed weekly through Apple. It's about £4.49 a week, which doesn't sound like much until you multiply it out: about £19.46 a month. Cancelled. I've got other places for notes.
• Netflix. I didn't need Premium, so I moved to Standard with ads. That saves about £13 a month and I still watch the same things.
• Grammarly. It was on an annual plan at US$139.95 a year. I've switched off the renewal now, so it can't surprise me later.
• A prepaid card app I'd stopped using, at £8.48 a month. Closed.
• Google Workspace, moved from Standard down to Starter. That's about £8.40 a month back, and nothing I use day to day has changed.
• YouTube Premium, moved to Lite. £5 a month saved.
• X Premium, paid for twice: once direct and once through Apple. I cancelled the Apple one, which saves £4 a month.
• A scheduling-tool add-on I'd stopped needing. Removed.
• ChatGPT and Wispr were both duplicated, with one charge through Apple and one direct. Caught.

What I kept on purpose

This wasn't about cutting everything. Some tools earn their keep, so I kept them:

• Zoom and Roam, which I use for work.
• iCloud 2TB. I'm using 2.2TB, so cutting it would break backups and photos. I checked before I touched it, and that check matters.
• HeyGen, which I'm putting to work on short videos.
• vidIQ. I'm keeping it with a proper YouTube plan, and if it doesn't pay its way in a month, it goes.

Still to do

Two phone calls: Sky and BT. Both are retention calls. I'll ask what the loyalty price is before I decide anything.

The arithmetic

Sky and BT aren't in that total yet.

How I used the AI

I didn't hand anything over. I used the assistant as a patient second pair of eyes.

• What I asked it: "Go through these and list every recurring payment, what it is, how often it bills, and when it renews."
• What it read:
  • My bank statement exports.
  • The subscriptions lists from the Apple and Google app stores.
  • The receipt emails.
  • It matched them up, which is how the duplicates showed.
• The weekly ones: it flagged anything billed weekly and multiplied it by 4.33 to give the real monthly cost.
• For each line, it asked me: keep, downgrade or cancel? Then it gave me the steps to do it.

Every decision was mine. I did the cancelling myself, and I checked each one had gone through before I moved on.

Your checklist

If you've got an hour this week, this is the order I'd go in:

1. Look for duplicates. Check Apple and Google billing against direct billing. It's easy to pay for the same thing twice.
2. Find the weekly-billed apps. Multiply by 4.33 to see the monthly cost. It's usually a shock.
3. Note price rises and renewal dates. Put them in your calendar a week before they're due.
4. Downgrade before you cancel. There may be a cheaper plan, an ad tier or a free tier that does the job.
5. Check storage use before cutting storage. If you're using more than the smaller plan holds, cutting it breaks things.
6. Switch off annual renewals now. You can turn them back on later, and you won't get a big surprise charge.
7. Make the retention calls. Ask for the loyalty price and be polite. You can always leave afterwards.
8. Keep the tools that earn their keep. Give each one a job and a date. If it hasn't earned its place by then, it goes.

One last thing

None of this is clever. It's just checking, the same as checking a drug chart or a spirit level. The AI made it quicker and kept me honest about the small stuff.

I build simple websites and systems for small businesses as Tafuma Web Services. If you'd like something like this set up for your business, message me for a quick quote on WhatsApp: wa.me/447753378489