Before I Add a New Thing

I have a rule I keep coming back to: before I buy something new, I look at what I already pay for.

This started as a money thing. My income is irregular. Some months I get a check from a usability test or a research study, and some months I don’t. I can’t count on a steady paycheck the way a lot of people can, so every subscription has to earn its place. When I need something new, the first question is whether I already have a tool that does the same job.

The booking form on my website is the clearest example. I wanted people to be able to book time with me for usability testing and consulting. The obvious answer is a service like Calendly. It does exactly that, and everyone has heard of it. But it would have been another monthly cost, another login, another thing to keep track of.

It turned out I didn’t need it. I already pay for Google Workspace, and Google Workspace has appointment scheduling built in. It does the same job, and I was already paying for it. So the booking runs through Google, not a separate service. It’s not as clean as Calendly would be. I had to put three separate links on my site, one for each type of appointment, instead of a single form people could fill out. But it works, and I didn’t add another subscription to get it.

That’s the part people miss when they talk about saving money. It’s not just about cutting things. It’s about noticing what the things you already pay for can do.

I did the same thing with a VPN. The Wi-Fi here is public, and I wanted my traffic protected. The obvious answer is a standalone VPN service, another subscription. Instead I looked at Tailscale, which I already used and already understood. It has an add-on that runs Mullvad as an exit node, five dollars and thirty-three cents a month. That’s a VPN built into an app I already know my way around, layered on top of the free plan I was already on. Five dollars and thirty-three cents is real money for me, but it’s one familiar app covering five devices instead of a new service I’d have to learn from scratch.

It’s not that I never spend money. I pay for the top Audible tier, two credits a month, because audiobooks are part of what keeps me going here. I pay for Spotify for the same reason. Music and books aren’t extras I’d trim. They’re the counterweight. The rule isn’t “never pay for anything.” It’s “check the thing you already pay for before you add a new thing.”

I think this matters more when you’re disabled and low-income, because the world assumes you can buy your way through problems. Can’t reach an app? Get a bigger phone. Need a booking form? Get Calendly. Need privacy? Get a VPN. Every problem has a product, and every product has a subscription. When your income is irregular and your energy is limited, you can’t keep adding tools. You have to get more out of the ones you already have.

So the rule is really about not letting the subscription model run my life. I already pay for enough. When a new need shows up, I look at what I already pay for first. Most of the time, the thing I need is already in there.