Technologies
4 Apps That Help Track Your Streaming Subscription Bills
Are you making payments for a streaming service you barely use? Here’s how to keep up.
Your streaming subscriptions for Netflix, Spotify, Disney Plus and other accounts are probably all on autopay. Because you don’t have to think about due dates, that may mean you’ve overlooked the monthly expense or who to contact if you want to cancel. You could be spending more money than you want by paying for a phantom streaming service.
Is Netflix billing you directly? Has your forgotten Hulu 30-day free trial turned into a paid subscription? Did you buy your Disney Plus subscription through a third party like Apple, Amazon or Verizon? With all the streaming price changes creeping in, unwatched content, and missed opportunities for deals, it’s a good idea to keep up with who’s billing you, when and for how much. Luckily, there are apps that can make keeping track of your streaming subs a lot easier.
Here’s our list of recommendations for apps that help you track payments for your streaming service subscriptions. Most of these offer a free option, but you can upgrade to a paid version if you want extra features.
Read more: Keep Up With What’s Streaming on TV Using These 5 Free Apps
Formerly known as Truebill, Rocket Money is a well-rounded budgeting app with the option to track your streaming subscriptions. There are free and paid versions available.
It uses Plaid to link your financial accounts and syncs information about automatic payments from your bank, credit card or services like PayPal. After signing up and setting up multifactor authentication, you can begin managing your recurring payments. Rocket Money provides a snapshot of your yearly spending on subscriptions like Spotify and Netflix, and you can also view upcoming payments including a countdown to the due date. A calendar icon takes you to a screen that outlines all payments for the month.
You can cancel subscriptions within the app, view your history of payments or remove them from the Rocket Money list. There is a seven-day free trial, but its recurring fee is on a sliding scale from $4 to $12 per month, billed annually. Rocket Money is easy to use, but the free account lacks some features such as having the app cancel your streaming accounts.
Hiatus is a budget- and bill-managing app that includes a subscription manager feature. When you create an account, you can track your streaming services in an organized «upcoming bills» category. The app also allows you to enter missing subscriptions manually.
Hiatus connects your financial institutions through Plaid, with options that include banks, PayPal or the Google Play Store. In addition to showing all your streaming subscriptions on autopay, the app provides insights on how much you’ve spent at different intervals — seven days, 30 days and the last 365 days. You may opt to set spending limits for your streaming services using the budget feature.
You can use the app for free, but if you sign up for a premium plan at $8 per month, Hiatus offers other features like canceling your subscriptions on your behalf. You also have the option to cancel on your own. Hiatus is available for Android, iOS and web browsers.
Like Hiatus and Rocket Money, Bobby helps you keep up with your streaming subscriptions and how much you’re spending on them. Unlike Hiatus and Rocket Money, Bobby does not require you to link your financial information to track your recurring payments.
Instead, you click through the app’s list of providers to create a list of streaming subscriptions. Then you manually enter information such as how much and how often you pay. We admit this may not be helpful if you can’t remember all of your active services. But with Bobby, you can receive notifications for upcoming due dates, organize the bills into a category and monitor your average spending on streaming. And it’s free.
Foreign currency breakdowns and security features like Touch ID and passcodes are available. Bobby can be downloaded on iOS devices only.
Trim allows you to find, track and cancel subscriptions at no charge. Like Hiatus and Rocket Money, you can connect your financial institution through Plaid, and the app will collate all your recurring subscription payments.
You can view your transaction history for each streamer and cancel a service within the app or by visiting its site directly. Trim is not available as a mobile app, but you can access it on a web browser on your phone or other device.
Streaming service bill tracker FAQs
What about privacy?
Sharing access to your financial information with a third party raises genuine concerns about security. We urge you to review the privacy policies for each service to learn how information is used and stored. With the exception of Bobby, all the services on this list use Plaid to connect your accounts. Plaid does not provide your login credentials to Rocket Money, Trim or Hiatus, so none of the apps receive or store your banking or credit card information.
Why isn’t Mint on this list?
Mint (by Intuit) is a popular user-friendly app that’s used for budgeting. There’s a feature meant to help you track bills and subscriptions, but when I clicked on the Subscriptions tab in the Bills section, none of my subscriptions or recurring payments showed up. I did receive a message saying Mint couldn’t find any subscriptions in my transaction history. Additionally, we’ve seen numerous users reporting that the subscription feature is unreliable.
Are there any other apps you considered?
In addition to Mint and the four tools on this list, we checked out other budget/subscription tracker apps, including PocketGuard, Wallet by Budgetbakers, Billbot, Petal and Everydollar. We decided to highlight the four we discussed here based on robust features, accessibility, fees and ease of use.
PocketGuard syncs with many banks but you’re unable to link PayPal and other third parties like the Google Play Store. Billbot is not available for newer versions of Android, Petal requires you to apply for an account and EveryDollar charges $13 monthly if you don’t want to manually track your financial transactions. To digitally sync Wallet with your financial institutions, you must pay for a premium account.
Technologies
Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Oct. 23 #599
Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Oct. 23, No. 599.
Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.
Today’s NYT Strands puzzle might be Halloween-themed, as the answers are all rather dangerous. Some of them are a bit tough to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.
I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.
If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.
Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far
Hint for today’s Strands puzzle
Today’s Strands theme is: Please don’t eat me!
If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Remember Mr. Yuk?
Clue words to unlock in-game hints
Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:
- POND, NOON, NODE, BALE, SOCK, LOVE, LOCK, MOCK, LEER, REEL, GLOVE, DAIS, LEAN, LEAD, REEL
Answers for today’s Strands puzzle
These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:
- AZALEA, HEMLOCK, FOXGLOVE, OLEANDER, BELLADONNA
Today’s Strands spangram
Today’s Strands spangram is POISONOUS. To find it, look for the P that is the first letter on the far left of the top row, and wind down and across.
Technologies
Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Oct. 23, #395
Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Oct. 23, No. 395.
Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.
Today’s Connections: Sports Edition has one of those crazy purple categories, where you wonder if anyone saw the connection, or if people just put that grouping together because only those four words were left. If you’re struggling but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.
Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.
Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta
Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups
Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.
Yellow group hint: Fan noise.
Green group hint: Strategies for hoops.
Blue group hint: Minor league.
Purple group hint: Look for a connection to hoops.
Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups
Yellow group: Sounds from the crowd.
Green group: Basketball offenses.
Blue group: Triple-A baseball teams.
Purple group: Ends with a basketball stat.
Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words
What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?
The yellow words in today’s Connections
The theme is sounds from the crowd. The four answers are boo, cheer, clap and whistle.
The green words in today’s Connections
The theme is basketball offenses. The four answers are motion, pick and roll, Princeton and triangle.
The blue words in today’s Connections
The theme is triple-A baseball teams. The four answers are Aces, Jumbo Shrimp, Sounds and Storm Chasers.
The purple words in today’s Connections
The theme is ends with a basketball stat. The four answers are afoul, bassist, counterpoint and sunblock.
Technologies
Amazon’s Delivery Drivers Will Soon Wear AI Smart Glasses to Work
The goal is to streamline the delivery process while keeping drivers safe.
Amazon announced on Wednesday that it is developing new AI-powered smart glasses to simplify the delivery experience for its drivers. CNET smart glasses expert Scott Stein mentioned this wearable rollout last month, and now the plan is in its final testing stages.
The goal is to simplify package delivery by reducing the need for drivers to look at their phones, the label on the package they’re delivering and their surroundings to find the correct address.
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A heads-up display will activate as soon as the driver parks, pointing out potential hazards and tasks that must be completed. From there, drivers can locate and scan packages, follow turn-by-turn directions and snap a photograph to prove delivery completion without needing to take out their phone.
The company is testing the glasses in select North American markets.
Watch: See our Instagram post with a video showing the glasses
A representative for Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
To fight battery drain, the glasses pair with a controller attached to the employee’s delivery vest, allowing them to replace depleted batteries and access operational controls. The glasses will support an employee’s eyeglass prescription. An emergency button will be within reach to ensure the driver’s safety.
Amazon is already planning future versions of the glasses, which will feature «real-time defect detection,» notifying the driver if a package was delivered to the incorrect address. They plan to add features to the glasses to detect if pets are in the yard and adjust to low light.
