The Subscription Graveyard

Welcome back to No Se Habla Taxes — the podcast where a CPA does her own bookkeeping... and finds financial skeletons in her closet. 

I’m Melissa Armstrong: fractional controller, solo practice owner, and your favorite financial translator for founders who’d rather invest in growth than leak money on duplicate apps. 

And today? I’m here with a confession that might sound familiar... 

💀 I discovered a subscription graveyard lurking in my books — two Canva accounts, duplicate Zoom charges, a forgotten Dropbox, and more. 

It started as a simple month-end review in QuickBooks Online… and ended in a digital horror story. 

In this episode, I walk you through: 

✨ How I realized I was paying twice for the same tools 

 ✨ Why these “just $15” charges quietly wreck your budget 

 ✨ A simple, CPA-approved audit method to catch and cancel the chaos 

 ✨ The real cost of cluttered expenses — beyond the dollars 

You’ll also meet my incredible VA, Nicole Leon of El Leon Virtual Assistants, who helps founders get out of the weeds with emotionally intelligent support. (Trust me, she’s a lifesaver.) 

And yes — I’m giving you a step-by-step system to run your own Subscription Audit, including: 

📌 How to pull and categorize your charges 

 📌 Spotting duplicates like a financial detective 

 📌 Ruthlessly cutting the noise 

 📌 Setting a quarterly reminder so it never happens again 

💡 Bonus Tip: I even shout out a virtual card trick that makes cancelling sneaky subscriptions a breeze. 

If you’ve ever said “It’s only $15, what’s the big deal?” — this one’s for you. 

🎧 Listen now to clean up your own subscription graveyard. 

 📥 Grab my free Subscription Audit Checklist here. 

 💬 DM me or tag me if this episode helped you cancel just one zombie charge. 

Until next time — stay scrappy, stay smart, and cancel that extra Canva account. 

Let's connect!

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/armstrongmelissacpa/

Website: https://steadyhandaccounting.com/

Transcript

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Welcome to No Se Habla Taxes, the podcast where A CPA does her own bookkeeping and occasionally discovers that my money has been ghosting me in the form of subscriptions. I didn't even know I still had. I am Melissa Armstrong, fractional controller, solo practice owner and financial translator for founders who would rather invest in growth than waste money on duplicate apps. And today, as usual, I'm here with a confession. So I was doing my own month end review. Nothing fancy, just scrolling through my expenses when I noticed. Something was strange. Two charges, same day, same dollar amount. At first, I thought it was a duplicate entry because if you know QuickBooks, you know it'll do that sometimes, but nope, there were two separate charges hitting my credit card. Turns out I had two Canva accounts, one tied to my business email, and another is still running under my personal Gmail. And it wasn't just Canva. I had a Dropbox subscription and Google Drive Premium. I was paying for Zoom Pro twice, one through my business account, and one still tied to my old personal PayPal. And don't get me started on the free trials. I signed up for, forgot about, and then quietly gut billed 29 point 99 a month. All in all, I was linking hundreds of dollars every single year on tools I wasn't even using and that my friend was my subscription graveyard. Now you might be thinking, okay, Melissa, it's only $15 here. 30 there. No big deal. But here's the truth, those little leaks add up. Every duplicate subscription is money that is not going to paying yourself, saving for taxes or investing in actual growth. And here's the bigger problem. When your expenses are cluttered with unnecessary charges, your profit and loss stops being a useful tool. You can't see your true operating costs. You're making decisions based on noise, and in some cases, those just $15 leaks can add up to thousands of dollars over a few years. That's not chump change. That's a vacation or a contractor hire or a new piece of equipment. I will share some tips to help you stay on top of these charges before they turn into a mess. But before I do, let's meet today's highlight from my network. This episode from my network is dedicated to Nicole Leon, my virtual assistant Nicole, is the owner of L Leon Virtual Assistants, a boutique virtual support business, providing administrative and executive assistance to founders and small teams with over a decade of experience. Nicole helps business owners get out of the weeds by offering proactive, emotionally intelligent support that keeps things moving so they can lead with more clarity, focus, and ease. Nicole is also actively building a personal brand focused on helping women reclaim their voice, visibility and power in life, work, and business, both her personal brand and Elon virtual assistants. Donate a portion of proceeds to organizations supporting women and children, survivors of abuse and children facing food insecurity. Reach out to Nicole on LinkedIn if you share any of these fashions or to schedule an alignment call. If you're looking for virtual support, you can find her at linkedin.com/in/. Nicole L. Leon, that is N-I-C-O-L-E dash l dash LEON. Now back to these subscription charges. How do you avoid ending up with your own subscription graveyard? Here's my CPA approved but founder tested method. Okay. Number one, pull the list, run through your credit card and bank statements for the last 60 to 90 days. Highlight every subscription. Number two, categorize, make a quick spreadsheet or a little note document or even a note on your phone if that's easier for you. And group them by software storage, communication design, admin. Whatever categories apply to you and your business. Number three, spot the duplicates. Do you really need Dropbox and Google Drive or two Canva accounts or three different scheduling tools? I think not. Number four, caught ruthlessly. Pick the one you actually use and cancel the rest. Don't hold on to just in case subscriptions future, you won't magically use them anymore. Number five, set a reminder. Make this a habit every quarter, do a subscription audit because I promise. You'll forget and those sneaky charges will creep back in. Bonus tip. Use a virtual card service that way you can see them all in one place and shut them down in one click if you need to. Here is the bigger truth. Subscription bloat doesn't just waste money. It will drain your energy. Every forgotten subscription is one more reminder that you don't have a handle on your backend, but when you clean that up, you feel in control again. You see your true expenses, you can trust your numbers now, and that clarity is in just about saving 29.99 a month. It's about making decisions with confidence. You deserve financial systems that support your growth, my friend. Not siphon off your hard earned cash like digital vampires. So that's my confession. I had a subscription graveyard hiding in my books. But here's your takeaway. Audit your subscriptions, trim the fat, and stop letting all signups eat away at your profits. If this episode gave you the nudge you need, subscribe to No Se Habla taxes. And if you want my subscription audit checklist, the exact one I now use every quarter, head to the link in the show notes and tell me how that goes. Until next time, stay scrappy, stay smart, and cancel that extra Canva account.