Skip to main content
Optimal Finance Daily

3471: 5 Google Calendar Tricks That Will Help You Save Money by Sarah Von Bargen of Yes and Yes on Budgeting Strategies

8 min episode · 2 min read

Episode

8 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Personal Finance, Science & Discovery

AI-Generated Summary

Key Takeaways

  • Free Trial Cancellations: Set calendar reminders several days before a free trial ends, not the day before, to create a buffer. If charged accidentally, contact the company within one to two days of the first payment to request a full refund with high success rates.
  • Annual Bill Price-Checking: Schedule one recurring annual reminder to audit every monthly bill, including internet and phone plans. Block two hours, research competitor pricing, and call providers directly. Retention costs companies three times more than acquisition, giving consumers significant negotiating leverage to reduce bills.
  • Annual Subscription Review: For any annually billed subscription, set a calendar reminder exactly 30 days before the renewal date. Use that window to evaluate actual usage frequency and check for overlapping platforms already in your existing subscriptions before the charge automatically processes.
  • Delayed Purchase Consideration: When an impulse to buy something arises, schedule a calendar reminder one to two days later rather than purchasing immediately. This cooling-off period creates space to evaluate genuine need versus impulse desire, and the purchase urge frequently disappears before the reminder triggers.

What It Covers

Sarah Von Bargen of yesandyes.org presents five Google Calendar reminder strategies that prevent costly oversights, covering free trials, unpaid invoices, bill negotiations, annual subscriptions, and client follow-ups to systematically protect personal finances.

Key Questions Answered

  • Free Trial Cancellations: Set calendar reminders several days before a free trial ends, not the day before, to create a buffer. If charged accidentally, contact the company within one to two days of the first payment to request a full refund with high success rates.
  • Annual Bill Price-Checking: Schedule one recurring annual reminder to audit every monthly bill, including internet and phone plans. Block two hours, research competitor pricing, and call providers directly. Retention costs companies three times more than acquisition, giving consumers significant negotiating leverage to reduce bills.
  • Annual Subscription Review: For any annually billed subscription, set a calendar reminder exactly 30 days before the renewal date. Use that window to evaluate actual usage frequency and check for overlapping platforms already in your existing subscriptions before the charge automatically processes.
  • Delayed Purchase Consideration: When an impulse to buy something arises, schedule a calendar reminder one to two days later rather than purchasing immediately. This cooling-off period creates space to evaluate genuine need versus impulse desire, and the purchase urge frequently disappears before the reminder triggers.

Notable Moment

The episode reframes customer service calls as emotional weight training — each negotiation with a billing department builds self-advocacy skills that transfer directly into other high-stakes life situations, making discomfort a deliberate practice rather than an obstacle.

Know someone who'd find this useful?

Episode Transcript

Starting a business means juggling a lot, and not just what customers see. There's operating agreements, compliance filings, and legal paperwork that all make up your business identity. That's a lot to manage on your own. Start your business with Northwest Registered Agent. They help you get more for your business, more privacy, more guidance, and more resources. Northwest has been helping small business owners launch and grow their businesses for nearly thirty years. They're the largest registered agent and LLC service in The US, with over 1,500 corporate guides, real people who know your local laws and can help you every step of the way. With Northwest, privacy is automatic. They never sell your data, and they give you free tools like operating agreements, meeting minutes, and thousands of how to guides. Don't wait. Protect your privacy, build your brand, and get your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and ten minutes. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/ofdfree and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at northwestregisteredagent.com/ofdfree. This is Optimal Finance Daily, five Google Calendar tricks that will help you save money by Sarah Von Bargain of yesandyes.org. If you're looking for advice on budgeting spreadsheets, coupon codes, or investing apps, this is not the blog post for you. When people ask me for money tips, they're pretty surprised when I tell them that one of my favorite money saving tools is Google Calendar Or more specifically, setting up reminders in Google Calendar? If you're a human who has good intentions to cancel those free trial memberships, follow-up on unpaid invoices, or book flights when they're cheap but then you just forget, Keep listening. These tips are, of course, also applicable to Outlook, iCal, whatever online calendar system you use. Five Google Calendar reminders that will save you money. A preface. Make sure you're setting up a reminder rather than an event. If you ignore the event, it'll pass and you'll forget about it, but a reminder will get kicked to the next day if you don't mark it as done. Number one, reminders to cancel free trials. Who among us hasn't signed up for the free thirty day trial, forgotten about it, and then realized six months later that we've been paying $17 a month for that thing we never use? We've all done it. Set this reminder for several days before the trial's actually up so you have a bit of wiggle room. If you start getting charged on June 1 and you set the reminder for May 31, it's too easy to forget about it. Miss the cutoff and they started charging you? Contact them and ask them to refund you. I've had 100% success asking to be refunded, though I usually contact them within a day or two of that first payment going through. I'm not sure how much luck you'd have if you're three months past the end of a free trial. Either way, self advocacy is a muscle. The more you use …

Get the full transcript (1,605 words) + summary by email — free

One-time email with the complete transcript and AI summary of this episode. No account needed.

One email, no spam. We’ll also show you what SignalCast does.

Browse all Optimal Finance Daily transcripts →

You just read a 3-minute summary of a 5-minute episode.

Get Optimal Finance Daily summarized like this every Monday — plus up to 2 more podcasts, free.

Pick Your Podcasts — Free

Keep Reading

Books, tools, and gear mentioned in this episode

SignalCast may earn commission on purchases via these links.

Tools

  • Google CalendarRecommended

    by Google

    Sarah Von Bargen of yesandyes.org presents five Google Calendar reminder strategies that prevent costly oversights, covering free trials, unpaid invoices, bill negotiations, annual subscriptions, and client follow-ups to systematically protect personal finances.
  • SPONSORS: Odoo at https://odoo.com

company

More from Optimal Finance Daily

We summarize every new episode. Want them in your inbox?

Similar Episodes

Related episodes from other podcasts

Explore Related Topics

This podcast is featured in Best Finance Podcasts (2026) — ranked and reviewed with AI summaries.

You're clearly into Optimal Finance Daily.

Every Monday, we deliver AI summaries of the latest episodes from Optimal Finance Daily and 192+ other podcasts. Free for one show.

Start My Monday Digest

No credit card · Unsubscribe anytime