5 Monthly Subscriptions I Will Never Pay For

I’ve saved a huge amount of money by using alternatives

I’m more than happy to pay a monthly subscription for useful services. However, I refuse to pay for services that I see as a bit of a rip-off or not worth the money.

Whatever we spend our money on, we should be making sure we get value for money from out purchases. This is especially true in these tough economic times.

I previously wrote about the 5 monthly subscriptions I can’t live without.

Now onto the ones I’ll never pay for.

1. Microsoft Office

I don’t consider this to be value for money at all.

I still use a copy of MS Office 2007 that came bundled with a laptop many years ago. I still have the disks and everything works perfectly.

In the old days, you used to be able to buy the software outright and use it for as long as you needed to. Nowadays, many companies have changed their products into SAAS — software as a service. All this means is that they charge you a ton of extra money for basically nothing.

Yes, they say you get regular updates, blah, blah, blah, but you usually don’t need them.

MS Office costs around $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year. I’ve had my free copy for 15 years. If I’d paid annually for it, it would have cost me around $1,500 so far.

To me, that is beyond ridiculous.

If my MS Office ever stops working I’ll switch to Google Docs.

2. Spotify

I used to have a Spotify subscription but it was worse than useless. I’m an avid traveler and found that lots of music was blocked depending on what country I was in at the time. There were also issues of what country I should be paying the subscription from. It’s cheaper in some countries than in others, but I can’t keep changing my subscription every time I visit a new country, which is often.

I also prefer to watch YouTube videos rather than just listen to music.

I might give Spotify another go if they can get it to work properly across countries, but I can’t see that happening any time soon.

3. QuickBooks

I used to have a copy of QuickBooks that I paid around $100 for. I used it for 10 years. QuickBooks Essentials is now $50 a month. That’s $6,000 for 10 years.

$6,000 vs $100. You have got to be joking.

Next time I need accounting software I’ll likely use a free version of whatever my accountant recommends. At the moment my accounts can be done on MS Excel.

4. Netflix

I recently read that around 44% of millennials subscribed to Netflix. I don’t have anything against Netflix. If I was a film buff I’d probably get it.

I don’t spend much time watching movies though. I prefer to read, play chess or build some side hustles. That way I earn money instead of spending it. It’s also way more fun.

It should be noted that millennials often complain about their lack of money. Maybe time to build a side hustle instead of sitting on the sofa watching movies.

Netflix costs around $9.99 a month.

5. Image Sites

I regularly use images but get mine from free sites. I have paid for images in the past and don’t mind doing that if the prices are reasonable.

The problem I find with most image sites though is that they never have a plan that suits my needs. The options are usually a few free images or a ton of images for a big price. I need something in between.

This is the same for many subscriptions services. Why don’t these companies have some middle-tier pricing?