Hobby Subscription Box and Membership Cost Tracker

Who this is for

See what your hobbies cost every month. List each subscription box, club membership, magazine and app, how it is billed and when it renews, and the tracker turns them into a yearly and monthly figure and shows what you pay for things you no longer use.

Hobbyists with several boxes, memberships and app subscriptions running at once, and anyone who suspects a renewal or two has slipped past unnoticed.

What this helps you track

• Every hobby subscription, membership, magazine and app in one list
• How each is billed and what each payment is
• When each one renews
• What they all cost per year and per month
• What you are paying each year for the ones you no longer use

How to use it

1. Write your name and the year at the top.
2. Go through your bank statements and inboxes and add each hobby subscription with the hobby it belongs to.
3. Choose how it is billed, enter the amount of each payment and the next renewal date.
4. Tick in use only for the ones you actually used lately; the yearly cost and totals are worked out in the browser and the workbook.
5. Look at the not-used total and cancel or pause before the next renewal date.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser
• Excel / Google Sheets workbook

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The workbook uses plain formulas only — SUM, IF, COUNTIF and the like — so it opens in Excel, LibreOffice and Google Sheets without anything breaking, and every calculated cell is grey so you can see which figures it worked out.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

How is the yearly cost worked out?

Monthly payments are multiplied by 12, quarterly by 4 and annual ones are taken as they are. Enter the amount you actually pay each time, including any change at renewal.

What about subscriptions billed every week or in odd periods?

Work out the yearly amount yourself, choose annual and enter that figure. Write the real billing period in the notes so you remember.

How is this different from a general subscription tracker?

This one is only for hobbies, with a column for which hobby each one feeds, so you can see what a single pastime costs in subscriptions. Household bills and streaming belong on a general tracker.

What counts as in use?

Your own judgement. A useful test is whether you opened the box, read the magazine or went to the club since the last payment. Anything unticked is added to the not-used total.