Subscriptions

A gripe about subscriptions.

I see that some restaurants are now offering subscriptions — pay $x per month and get free delivery or extra cheese sauce or something else. Interesting idea. If you use it. And if you use it a lot.

I recently went through all the subscriptions we’ve got. One of them, for car washes, seemed like a good deal at the time. It was at Quick Quack. Each car wash was $18 but it was $31 a month for “unlimited” car washes. The only problem with that is that the place has become so popular that you have to wait 20+ minutes to get a car wash. I realized that in the last month I’d only been able to get one car wash, meaning I was paying $31 per car wash. So I’m an idiot. And I’m sure there are months I didn’t get any car wash at all.

I’ve now canceled it. Of course, I canceled it the day after it renewed for the month. So now I’m gonna go around in a circle and get it washed over and over and over. Because I’m just that petty.

Similar problem with streaming subscriptions — one streaming service we almost never watch, so it works out to paying like $8 a month for one show. I could buy a box set of all of the episodes of the show for $8. So I’m an idiot for having kept that.

Also, set a timer if there’s a “free trial” period. We subscribed for a streaming service because we thought it would carry what we wanted. It didn’t. (Side note: get the app Just Watch or go to their website to find out where you can actually watch what you’re looking for.) But to get the service I had to pay for a year, with a 7-day free trial. Once I realized it didn’t carry what we wanted I went to cancel it. On day 8. So I’m an idiot. (I did just cancel it before it renewed — and they were so sorry to see me go they offered me two free months to continue to not use it. I passed on their generous offer.)

So if I see a restaurant offering me a subscription, I’m gonna think long and hard about it…and then not do it. If it’s $10 a month for free delivery it’s not really free delivery. It’s $10 for delivery if you only use it once. It’s $5 for delivery if you use it twice. You get the idea.