This Silly Mistake Cost Me Over $100

I try to be smart about how I manage my personal finances, but unfortunately everyone makes mistakes -- and I recently made one. Sadly, my error ended up costing me over $100 in unnecessary charges on my credit card.

While this isn't financially devastating to me, it's a bummer that I had to pay this credit card bill out of my bank account for no real reason. Here's what happened, along with some tips on avoiding the error that I made.

A simple mistake comes at a cost

The mistake that I made was one that could happen to anyone. I signed my son up for a learning app, which had a monthly subscription fee. The app costs $12.99 per month, and my subscription auto-renewed each month.

My son used the app for a few months, but then he got bored with the games and it became too repetitive, so we moved on to other things. Unfortunately, I forgot to cancel the subscription. And because I have a number of other apps that I happily pay for each month, I missed it when I was scanning my credit card statement and I didn't realize that I was still paying for it.

I let the unused subscription remain active for nine full months, which meant that I wasted a grand total of $116.91 for a program that was not opened even once during that time period.

How to avoid forgetting subscriptions of your own

I am definitely not alone in subscribing to something and forgetting to cancel it. Research shows around 30% of subscriptions go unused each month, with a monthly average value of $25.34. These unused subscriptions could be apps like mine, or streaming services, or a service like Amazon Prime.

Unfortunately, with the average household maintaining an average of 4.4 active paid subscriptions, it's easy for things to get lost in the shuffle. You may:

• Forget you signed up for a subscription
• Assume you'll use your subscription soon and avoid canceling even if you don't really end up using it again
• Forget to cancel a subscription before the trial period ends

These are just a few of many ways you could fall into the trap of paying for something you don't really get value from. To avoid this, it's helpful to keep a master list of everything you're signing up for that has a monthly or periodic fee. Review that list every single month and make a checkmark next to services you use. If you go more than a month or two without putting a check next to a particular service, it's time to cancel.

You should also put renewal dates on your calendar as a failsafe so you're reminded before any subscription service charges you. That way, you can take a second to consider whether it's really worth paying for another month.

By taking these simple steps, you can avoid the mistake I made. I've made my own master list now, and I know for sure exactly when I last used each of the apps and streaming services that I'm devoting my hard-earned money to. I won't find myself out another $100, and if you follow this advice, you won't fall victim to the error I made.