There’s a good chance your free trial won’t actually be free.
When signing up for a free trial, it is SO important to understand that while the trial period may be free, there’s often some fine print lurking to spoil it if you aren’t careful. If you don’t have to provide a method of payment, you’re likely in the clear. However, be sure to read the fine print and fully understand when the trial period and ends and what happens after that. Will you be charged a one month subscription fee? Will you be charged for a week of meal-kit delivery? What does the fine print say and how much will it cost you?
In terms of meal-kit delivery, while it might not be a completely free trial, there are usually MAJOR discounts for the first one or two deliveries during the “trial” regardless of whether they call it a trial or not. In fact, I think these are some of the hardest trials to manage. This is because while you wait for the discounted delivery to arrive, you often aren’t able to cancel your membership. As a result, you have to select to skip future deliveries in the calendar on the company’s website. Here is the kicker… you can only skip so many deliveries at once since the calendars usually don’t go out indefinitely. Once your delivery has shipped/arrived, you need to go in and cancel your subscription. If you forget to do this, chances are you will randomly have another meal-kit delivery show up at your doorstep and be like NOOOO!
So, let’s discuss how to avoid these unintentional purchases.
Sometimes, you can cancel your subscription right away without messing with your free trial. Try this option right away, but ensure that it won’t cancel your trial as well. If this option is on the table, it is the easiest way to remember to cancel the trial… because you legit don’t need to remember anything at all.
If you can’t cancel right away, my absolute favorite method here is to put a reminder in your phone. I live by phone reminders. I honestly don’t know how I’d function without them (actually I do because I had them all deleted this year and it was quite a train wreck… missed appointments, re-looking up free trial periods, etc. Complete chaos). As a result, I now have a note in my phone that lists all my trials and their respective end dates. I put phone reminders in my phone for a few days to a week before the trial ends to give myself a little buffer.
If you hate phone reminders, you can also add calendar reminders to your Google calendar, write it in your planner, or there are even apps to keep track of your subscriptions!
If you do forget to cancel a free trial and get charged, it is DEFINITELY worth a shot to contact customer service to get it resolved.
Sometimes they will refund you, especially if it is something you haven’t used yet. Other times, they won’t budge but might be willing to give you a discount on a future purchase or some sort of consolation. Never hurts to try and negotiate!