# Subscription Review Safe Workflow

For the method in
[Finding Subscription Drift Without Exposing Your Bank History](/articles/subscription-drift-review).
Never connect an AI tool to your bank account. You export, you redact, you cancel.

## Not for

Autonomous cancellation, refund requests, or any agent action on a live financial account.
You review the flagged list and cancel yourself, every time.

## Before you start

- [ ] Exported 12 months of transactions (CSV or clean copy-paste), not just the last month
- [ ] Redacted full account and card numbers
- [ ] Generalized sensitive merchant lines (clinics, legal services, benefits offices)
- [ ] Using a tool with training turned off or a temporary/incognito session
- [ ] Not uploading the raw export file — pasting redacted text only

## Recurring-merchant table

| Merchant (as shown) | Amount | Interval | 12-month total | Confidence | Still used? |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| | | | | ☐ High ☐ Medium ☐ Low | |
| | | | | ☐ High ☐ Medium ☐ Low | |
| | | | | ☐ High ☐ Medium ☐ Low | |
| | | | | ☐ High ☐ Medium ☐ Low | |
| | | | | ☐ High ☐ Medium ☐ Low | |

**Every low-confidence line checked manually against the actual statement:** ☐ Yes

## Decision questions (one per high-confidence subscription)

-
-
-

## Cancellation verification checklist

For each subscription you decide to cancel:

- [ ] Logged into the service directly (not via a generated link)
- [ ] Cancelled from account settings, not just paused or downgraded
- [ ] Confirmation email or on-screen confirmation received
- [ ] Checked the next billing statement to confirm the charge actually stopped
- [ ] Noted the cancellation date below

| Merchant | Cancelled on | Confirmed stopped on next statement? |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | ☐ Yes ☐ No |
| | | ☐ Yes ☐ No |

## The two prompts to reuse

**1. Group and flag recurring charges**

```text
Here are twelve months of transactions, with account numbers removed
and sensitive merchant lines generalized: [paste redacted list].
Group any merchant that appears 2 or more times at a similar amount
and a regular interval (monthly, quarterly, annually). For each
group, show: merchant name as it appears, amount, interval, total
paid over the twelve months, and a confidence flag (high/medium/low)
for whether this looks like a genuine subscription versus a
coincidental repeat purchase. Do not recommend cancelling anything —
just group and flag.
```

**2. Frame the decision question**

```text
For each high-confidence subscription in this list [paste], write
one specific question I should ask myself before deciding whether to
keep or cancel it — based on frequency of use, whether a free tier
would cover my needs, or whether I forgot I had it. Do not tell me
which ones to cancel.
```

## Running total

| Quarter | Subscriptions cancelled | Estimated annual savings |
| --- | --- | --- |
| | | |
| | | |