One of the best places to cut back on expenses is monthly memberships. Most memberships people have are not being used enough to justify paying the monthly fee.
Businesses know this, and they realize if they can get you into an ongoing membership, it's a continuous stream of income for them. In fact, they make it easy for you to forget all about it by getting your credit card number once and then conveniently billing you monthly so "you don't have to do anything!"
If you start paying close attention you'll find these continuity programs, as they're called, popping up everywhere. Salons/spas, auto clubs, professional associations, nutritional products and just about anything you might think of buying through an infomercial.
You must determine whether the benefits (i.e. discounts, savings, etc.) you get from the product or service justifies the monthly cost. Here's an example:
Netflix and other video services have the monthly membership where you can keep the movies for as long as you want with no late fees. Initially, it sounded like a great deal until I realized that we rent maybe one video every 2-3 months.
If I were to get this membership, we would probably take advantage of it aggressively for the first month or two. But eventually we would revert back to our old pattern simply because we don't have the time (or desire) to watch that many movies. Thus that'd be a waste of $12-20 per month. It's much easier to visit a Redbox when we want to watch a movie.
Take a look at the current membership programs in your life and ask yourself are you really using them. If not, cancel them and use that money more wisely.