Yesterday I got a hold of my credit card statement. This is the statement for the credit card that I use for my freelance business. Web services, hosting, e-books and subscriptions all go on it. It's not wildy extravagant. Last month I spent just under £100 on products and services for my freelance business. I can definitely cut back on a couple of services I subscribe to and choose lower pricing plans, but there's another area where I can make savings.

Each month I pay a small amount to subscribe to a number of different services. For most of these services I'm happy to pay the monthly amount. It's always under £10 with the exception of one. Not a lot of money, but over the course of the year those add up.

Where I'm not saving money is paying the monthly subscription amount for these services rather than the annual amount. Most online products and services offer an annual discount that means you pay less for that service over the year. You do however have to pay for the annual service up front.

As I'm trying to keep a reign on my spending, I would love to switch to paying a once annual amount for these services, but with there being a handful that I can do this with, I'd rather not do it all in the one month. It would just cost too much money in the one month.

The alternative then is to stagger annual service subscriptions. Starting in April, I'm going to switch one service a month over to an annual subscription in order to save a bit more money. I'm already using these services on a monthly basis and have done for the last two years. I'm a regular payer and will continue to do so, so why not subscribe for a year and save myself some more money?

Making annual payments for products and services will increase my monthly spending for my business at first, but over the rest of the year, I'll see my monthly spending do down. There's a couple of trade-offs with this plan.

The first is that I'll be tied into that service for a longer period of time, but it's a trade-off I can live with. I've used the services I'm committing to for a few years now and I don't see me wanting to change in the next year at least.

The second is that my monthly spending projection will be hard to track given that some months will have larger one off payments. It's not a major inconvenience but I have been so used to maintaining a monthly amount that has been consistent for the last year.

Switching to annual plans for services is a difficult choice. I suggest that you only consider those services that are critical to your business and also offer a discount over paying monthly. You might only save yourself a small amount on one service, but across a handful of services you could be saving yourself a lot more. Definitely something worth thinking about.