Human Rights

Coronavirus Cash Crisis: Should I Cancel My Subscription Services?

The coronavirus pandemic prompted an unprecedented shutdown of the U.S. economy. We asked experts what services could be considered essential.

Coronavirus Cash Crisis: Should I Cancel My Subscription Services?
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Coronavirus Cash Crisis: Should I cancel my monthly subscription services?

"You want to consider looking at subscription services, anything that is not an actual need, getting either suspended, temporarily paused or completely cut from your budget right now in order to preserve cash," said Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial.

"In my view, mental health is equally important as physical health. Now, you just cannot switch off Netflix. You just cannot switch off your television, and that keeps you informed. So you have to keep some basic subscriptions. One thing that I would recommend people is maybe embrace the radio. So a lot of free radio stations on the internet and which gives high quality information, they're entertaining," said Arindam Nag, chief executive of Centsai.  

"Maybe you're in a high-risk category and you can't physically be going into a grocery store. It's too big of a risk. Then sure, it makes sense to continue to get, whether it's a food delivery service, whether it's ordering your groceries online, even if that costs a little more," said Lowry. 

"We do still have to consider our quality of life. And if it's going to help keep your kids in the house instead of having them outside where they could get sick, then that might actually be an essential expense," said Stefanie O'Connell Rodriguez, a personal finance author.