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<blockquote data-quote="MNblockhead" data-source="post: 9669801" data-attributes="member: 6796661">Recent job change, relocation, and having to rent in a different city from my family until we can arrange moving the family have necessitating keeping to a tight budget. I use a fancy version of &quot;envelope budgeting&quot; (using YNAB) where every dollar coming in is assigned. Some categories a pretty broad, but I break down subscriptions so that each subscription has its own line instead of one budget line for &quot;streaming&quot;.&nbsp; No matter the subscription schedule, there is a monthly cost that I have to assign money to. So, if an annual subscription is $120, I have to assign $10 a month to that budget line. I go over my budget at least once a week, assigning costs and income to budget categories. This has really helped me keep an eye on subscriptions.&nbsp; I don't watch that much content on a day to day basis. I generally subscribe to a streaming service for a specific series. In the past, I wasted so much money paying for streaming services that nobody in my family was not actively using or wouldn't be until the next season of a particular show would come out. Going over my budget regularly has really helped me become more disciplined about cancelling services before monthly/annual renewals. I've also gotten more disciplined in not jumping into a new new subscription when a show I'm interested is released. I'll wait until more content I'm interested in builds up on that subscription and/or I'm ready to cancel another subscription. The one area where I could be more frugal is supporting podcasts. There are a few I really enjoy, but hate ads so I pay to have the premium ad‑free access. As for software, the one that I still pay for is for Adobe Acrobat.&nbsp; I feel it is dumb to keep paying for my personal use case. I could get by with Mac's Preview for most things. But there are just enough instances where it just works better for me that I continue paying for it. My subscription is coming up for renewal and I'm looking at buying a one‑time license of PDF Expert, which I've been testing and am liking better than Acrobat.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="MNblockhead, post: 9669801, member: 6796661"] Recent job change, relocation, and having to rent in a different city from my family until we can arrange moving the family have necessitating keeping to a tight budget. I use a fancy version of "envelope budgeting" (using YNAB) where every dollar coming in is assigned. Some categories a pretty broad, but I break down subscriptions so that each subscription has its own line instead of one budget line for "streaming". No matter the subscription schedule, there is a monthly cost that I have to assign money to. So, if an annual subscription is $120, I have to assign $10 a month to that budget line. I go over my budget at least once a week, assigning costs and income to budget categories. This has really helped me keep an eye on subscriptions. I don't watch that much content on a day to day basis. I generally subscribe to a streaming service for a specific series. In the past, I wasted so much money paying for streaming services that nobody in my family was not actively using or wouldn't be until the next season of a particular show would come out. Going over my budget regularly has really helped me become more disciplined about cancelling services before monthly/annual renewals. I've also gotten more disciplined in not jumping into a new new subscription when a show I'm interested is released. I'll wait until more content I'm interested in builds up on that subscription and/or I'm ready to cancel another subscription. The one area where I could be more frugal is supporting podcasts. There are a few I really enjoy, but hate ads so I pay to have the premium ad‑free access. As for software, the one that I still pay for is for Adobe Acrobat. I feel it is dumb to keep paying for my personal use case. I could get by with Mac's Preview for most things. But there are just enough instances where it just works better for me that I continue paying for it. My subscription is coming up for renewal and I'm looking at buying a one‑time license of PDF Expert, which I've been testing and am liking better than Acrobat. [/QUOTE]

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