Last Tuesday, I was scrolling through my bank feed while waiting for the microwave to ping — reheating last night's curry, if you must know — and spotted a £20 direct debit to a health company. I stared at it. Genuinely had no idea what it was for.
Turns out it was a supplement subscription I'd signed up to back in January. I'd done the free trial, meant to cancel, and then… didn't. Classic. That's £60 gone over three months on vitamins I never even opened.
If you've never sat down to check direct debits and recurring payments properly, you're almost certainly leaking money. Research from Emma suggests the average UK adult wastes around £30–50 a month on forgotten subscriptions. Some estimates are even higher. And honestly, I believe it — because I thought I was on top of mine, and I still got caught out.
Here's the exact process I now run every month. Takes about ten minutes. Costs nothing.
Step 1: Pull Up Every Recurring Payment in One Place
You can do this the old-fashioned way — logging into each bank account and scanning statements. But that's a faff, especially if you've got a couple of current accounts and a credit card or two.
The faster method is to use an app that connects to your accounts via Open Banking and pulls all your recurring payments into one list. I use Emma for this. It automatically spots subscriptions and direct debits, flags price increases, and even tells you which ones have gone up recently. Snoop does something similar and is also free.
If you'd rather not connect your accounts (fair enough), you can request a list of all active direct debits and standing orders from your bank. Monzo shows them right in the app under the Payments tab — dead easy. Starling does too. With high street banks, you might need to dig into the settings or just ring them.
Either way, get everything in one list. That's the whole point. You can't audit what you can't see.
Step 2: Sort Them Into Three Piles
I go through each payment and mentally sort it into one of three categories:
- Keep — things I actively use and need. Council tax, energy, phone bill, gym membership I actually go to (most weeks, anyway).
- Review — things I'm paying for but might be able to reduce. Insurance, broadband, any subscription where I'm not on the best deal anymore.
- Cancel — things I forgot about or no longer use. That supplement subscription. A meditation app I used twice. A magazine I haven't read since autumn.
The "review" pile is where the real savings tend to hide. But the "cancel" pile is the quick win. Get those gone first.
How to Actually Cancel Direct Debits in the UK
This bit trips people up. You've got two options, and most people don't realise the second one exists.
Option A: Cancel with the company. Log into their site, find the cancellation page, click through. Some make this straightforward. Others — and I won't name names but we've all been there — bury it behind three menus and a phone call. Infuriating.
Option B: Cancel the direct debit through your bank. You have the legal right to cancel any direct debit at any time, directly through your bank. You don't need the company's permission. With Monzo or Starling, you can do this in about four taps. With most banks, you can do it through online banking or by calling.
One thing to know: cancelling the direct debit doesn't always cancel the underlying contract. So if you're in a minimum term — like a 12-month phone contract — you might still owe money. For anything where you're out of contract or on a rolling plan, just cancel the direct debit and you're sorted.
And if you've been charged for something you didn't authorise or forgot to cancel a free trial? You can claim a refund under the Direct Debit Guarantee. Your bank has to refund you immediately and sort it out with the company afterwards. Not enough people know this.
The Review Pile: Where the Bigger Savings Are
Once the dead weight is gone, look at what's left. Specifically:
- Insurance — car, home, pet. If you haven't compared prices recently, do it. MoneySuperMarket takes five minutes and I knocked £80 off my car insurance last year just by switching.
- Broadband and mobile — are you out of contract? If so, you're probably on a rolling rate that's higher than what new customers get. Call them, or just switch.
- Streaming — do you really need Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime, and Apple TV? I ended up rotating — one at a time, cancel and switch every couple of months. Works perfectly.
- Energy — this one's tricky right now with the price cap, but it's still worth checking if you're on the right tariff.
The key is to not just cancel for the sake of it. Some subscriptions are genuinely worth keeping. My YNAB subscription costs about £80 a year and has probably saved me ten times that by keeping my budget honest. But if something isn't earning its keep? Bin it.
My 10-Minute Monthly Audit Routine
Here's exactly what I do on the first Sunday of each month. Usually while making a brew.
- Open Emma. Check the subscriptions tab. Look for anything new, anything that's gone up in price, anything I don't recognise.
- Open my bank app. Check direct debits and standing orders. Make sure the list matches what I expect.
- Ask myself: did I actually use this in the last 30 days? If the answer is no for two months running, it's gone.
- For anything in the "review" pile, I set a reminder to compare prices before renewal.
That's it. Ten minutes. I do it while the kettle boils and the tea brews.
Since I started doing this properly about six months ago, I've cancelled four subscriptions I'd forgotten about and switched two that were overpriced. Total saving: roughly £50 a month. That's £600 a year, for ten minutes of effort each month.
The £20 health direct debit was the one that finally made me take this seriously. A bit embarrassing, honestly — I write about personal finance and I still missed it. But that's exactly the point. These things slip through because they're small enough to ignore individually. Add them up and it's a different story.
Free tool: Use our Subscription & Direct Debit Audit spreadsheet (free) to find out exactly where your money goes each month. See all our UK finance tools.
If you haven't checked your direct debits recently, do it today. Open your banking app right now — it takes two minutes to scan the list. And if you find something you forgot about? Cancel it before you talk yourself out of it. Future you will be glad you did.