A regular review of what you use can tame your tech budget

Modern life demands subscriptions – for watching TV, listening to music, file storage in the cloud, even dating apps. Do you use or need all of your streaming services? An occasional check could save you some money.

Last year, the average household spent $640 on subscriptions like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+.

An obvious way to trim that cost is to take an inventory and cancel those you don't use. Beyond that, you might be able to save by checking your billing statements.

Consumer Reports editor Chris Raymond said, “I found that I was paying for insurance on a smartphone that was four years old. And I was also paying for a DVR that we no longer use because we just stream the shows we want to see.”

Even with the increasing cost of streaming services, Consumer Reports says cutting cable could still save $700 or more a year depending on what you have and what you replace it with.

An antenna will give you free network content. You can add a limited streaming service like Sling, which starts at $20 a month.

Another way to tame your tech budget is to stop renting your router from your cable company and buy your own, but you have to be willing to pay the upfront cost and be technically proficient enough to install it.