A kitchen table at evening covered with a fanned stack of blank statements, a highlighter, a calculator and a phone, with a hand mid-note.

    The Standing-Order Audit

    Find every recurring charge you have, including the ones that no longer appear on a statement you read, and put them on one page in order of size.

    Module 1 of 84 lessonsWritten in full1 worksheet

    The lessons

    All 4, in the order they are read.

    1. 1. The bills you cannot name
      Most households can name six recurring charges and are paying between fourteen and thirty. The gap is the whole opportunity.

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    2. 2. Reading twelve months, not one
      Annual and irregular charges are invisible to a one-month review, and they are usually the largest discretionary lines you have.
    3. 3. The charges that never touch a bank statement
      Phone-billed services, app-store subscriptions and payroll deductions sit outside the statement and outside most people's mental total.
    4. 4. The one page
      One row per charge, sorted largest first, with the four columns that the rest of the course fills in.

    The worksheet

    The standing-order register

    One row per recurring charge. Fill the first seven columns from your statements; the last four are filled in by Modules 2 through 8. The example row shows the shape. Sort the finished sheet by annual cost, descending — that order is the order you work in.

    The standing-order register
    Charge (as it appears)VendorWhat it is forBilling periodAmountAnnual costWhere it is billedLast price changeContract end / renewal datePublished cheaper tier?Action
    EXAMPLE ROW — replaceExample TelecomHome internetMonthly$79.99$959.88Checking ****1234Rose $10 in MarchOut of contractYes — same speed, promo tierModule 4: call retentions
    Monthly / Annual / Quarterly= amount x periods per yearBank / card / phone bill / app store / payrollFrom the statement historyFrom the agreementModule 3 answers thisOne of: keep, downgrade, renegotiate, cancel, replace