5 Months In: Use Your Real Data to Cut Subscriptions Before Summer

You signed up for something in January. Maybe it was a fitness app for the new year, a streaming service your teenager swore you'd all use, or a premium tier of something you'd been on free for years. Five months have passed. Do you actually know if you've used it?

This is the best time of year to find out — because now you have real data.

The Problem with Gut Feeling

Most subscription reviews fail because they're based on gut feeling. "We probably use that." "I watched something on it last month." "I think the kids are on it sometimes." That kind of thinking keeps expensive services alive long past their useful life.

The average family in 2026 holds 5.2 subscriptions and spends around €69 a month on them, according to Bango's Subscription Signals report. More importantly, research firm Antenna found that subscription prices have risen more than 20% since 2023 — and 2026 has already seen three price hikes in the first five months alone. Starz and AMC+ both announced increases taking effect on 8 June.

What felt like a reasonable monthly bill in January may now be meaningfully more expensive by summer — and you may not have noticed.

What Five Months of Data Actually Tells You

January decisions are made with optimism. June tells you the truth.

By now you can answer:

• Which services did your household open at least once a week?
• Which were opened once or twice, then forgotten?
• Which are you actively anticipating — and which would you only miss if someone asked?

If you use SubManager, the analytics tab gives you exactly this view: monthly spend per service, renewal dates, and the full picture of what your family is actually paying for. If your household pays for eight services but four of them have gone untouched since February, that's a real number — not a hunch.

The 5-month rule of thumb: if a subscription hasn't been used in 30 days or more, it belongs on the cancellation list unless there's a specific reason it will be used soon.

Practical Steps for the Mid-Year Cut

Step 1: List everything. It sounds obvious, but most people undercount. Check your bank statements for recurring charges — not just the obvious streaming services. Look for cloud storage, news sites, app subscriptions, fitness apps, and annual plans that auto-renewed earlier in the year.

Step 2: Sort by actual use. Divide your subscriptions into three categories: "used regularly," "used occasionally," and "haven't touched it." Be honest. SubManager's spending overview makes this easy by laying out every active subscription in one place — everyone in the family can see what's active and weigh in.

Step 3: Apply a summer filter. Summer changes usage patterns significantly. If you're paying for a commuter podcast app or a lunch-hour productivity tool, you may use it far less in July and August. Some services let you pause rather than cancel — Duolingo Max, for example, allows monthly pausing. Take advantage of that now rather than paying through a holiday you won't use it.

Step 4: Act on the "probably fine to cancel" pile. The most common mistake is identifying the deadweight and then doing nothing. Pick a day — right now, if you can — and cancel the ones you decided to drop. Most services offer easy reinstatement if you change your mind later.

What Your June Statement Actually Costs You Annually

It helps to see the yearly number, not the monthly one. Take whatever you spend per month and multiply by 12. A €65/month habit is €780 a year. For many families in 2026, the actual annual total lands somewhere between €700 and €1,200 — a figure that tends to prompt much faster decisions than a monthly line item.

The 20% rise since 2023 means that if you set your subscription stack up three years ago and haven't audited it since, you're likely paying significantly more for the same services. The increases rarely arrive as one large jump — they come as a series of "just €1 more" notifications that are easy to approve and easy to forget.

SubManager's price alert feature notifies you when a charge amount changes, so those increases don't slip through unnoticed. But catching them proactively — before they accumulate — is always the smarter move.

A Note on Annual Plans

If you're renewing an annual plan in the next month or two, June is the right time to make that decision rather than defaulting into another 12 months. Check your renewal dates now. SubManager will show you upcoming renewals with 7-day advance alerts by default — but manually scanning for anything due in June or July is worth a few minutes of your time.

Ask: would you pay for this month-by-month if you had to? If the answer is no, don't lock in another year just because it's slightly cheaper.

What's Next

A mid-year audit doesn't need to be a big production. An hour with your bank statements, a conversation with whoever else in the family uses these services, and a willingness to actually cancel what you identify — that's it.

Summer is a natural pause point for family routines. Use it. Your subscriptions will cost more in July than they did in January, and the ones you're not using will cost you just as much as the ones you love.