We are truly in the age of a subscription economy. With so much data and information available at the touch of our hands, it seems we no longer need to own a significant number of physical objects. Instead, we can just utilize some of the high-quality services out in the current marketplace. I personally find this quite freeing as I don’t have to have as many material belongings. However, it is very easy to build up many subscriptions that you pay for, but no longer use.
Below are some of my favorite subscription services that I use daily: Amazon Prime – $119/year. To me, this is the best value you can get. Not only do you receive 2-day shipping on all orders, the video/ebook/music content library is extensive.
Google – (varies depending on plan). For $2/month, I am able to backup all of my digital photos and documents that I have ever taken. The suite of free (or close to it) Google services is certainly worth a look if you have not already.
LastPass Premium – $2/month. The ability to use a password manager that saves unique and secure passwords for the hundreds of internet logins I have is invaluable.
Spotify – $9.99/month for an individual, $14.99/month for a family. Competing directly with Apple Music and several other streaming services, Spotify is my favorite music streaming service purely because of their curated playlists.
Netflix – $10.99/month for 2 devices. One of the first streaming services. Netflix is also paving the way for original series streaming content along with Amazon.
Wall Street Journal (Digital Subscription) – $18.50/month. This is one of the highest priced subscriptions on my list, however, I value excellent writing and journalism and I am happy to pay for this. There are also discounts for initial trials, professors, and students.
Keeping Subscriptions In Check One downside of subscriptions is that you often don’t remember exactly what you are paying for. (Do you really use that gym membership?) We recommend as part of this reading that you evaluate your current subscription list and edit/remove ones that you no longer use.