It’s so easy to sign up for those free 30-day trials.
But that's the point: Companies want to make it as easy for you as possible to get those trials, and yet you always have to enter credit card information to receive it.
If it’s truly free, then why do we have to enter the credit card info in the first place? Because that’s how they get you.
These companies now have your info, in anticipation that you’ll either love their service or hope you forget about it, and can charge you for things on a regular basis.
Most often, it’s the monthly or even annual fee; Something that doesn’t happen enough to really notice all the time, and usually it’s amounts that small enough that you don’t pick up on it immediately.
So, we’ll go months or years without ever canceling that free service that we never use and “free” winds up actually costing us hundreds.
We tried out some apps you can download that help carefully monitor your monthly spending and can zero-in on those recurring phantom charges so they don't haunt you down the road.
Many of these apps can actually cancel the service for you or at least walk you through the process.
A company like Truebill – which you can download in any app store -- will help you cancel any recurring charges. It’ll even go a step further and can notice when your regular monthly bills start to creep up in price.
For instance, it can notice if the cable company started incrementally increasing your monthly bill. It can then help you pinpoint that so you can figure out why the charges went up and potentially get them back down.
An issue for some people may be that you have to enter a good bit of private information, including your bank account info. That’s how it tracks what charges are popping up.
While the company says it's secure and doesn't give out information, it's still something you have to think about when deciding to sign up.
One major way to make sure you’re maximizing your monthly budget and saving money is to make sure you’re not paying for things that you’re not using, or don’t truly find value in.
Whether you decide to use technology or do it by hand by looking over your statements the old-fashioned way, you need to bust these phantom charges before they come back to haunt you.