Clever wit

On average, seven regular payments leave our bank accounts every month* for bills, subscriptions and more.

- FINANCE AND CONSUMER EXPERT CAROLINE

Could you list them all? According to Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert, millions of people don’t check their regular payments often enough and could be wasting hundreds of pounds on products they no longer want or use. Research from Citizens Advice last year found that more than a quarter of adults had accidentally signed up for unwanted subscriptions within the past 12 months. This often happens due to auto-renewals, forgetting to cancel before a free trial ends, or - most worryingly - mistaking a subscription for a one-off purchase. The good news? From spring 2026 new protections against these so-called ‘subscription traps’ will come into force, making it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to sign up.