The average person pays for three subscriptions they forgot they had. Streaming trials that auto-renewed. A photo app you used once. That "free month" of a cloud drive that quietly charged you 11 times.

Budgeting apps promise to catch these. But they do it by reading your bank feed — which means a company now has a list of everything you buy. You solved a money leak by opening a privacy leak.

Here's the better move: self-host a tiny subscription tracker. No bank access. No data broker. Just a list you control.

Why not use a spreadsheet?

You could. But spreadsheets don't nag you. The whole point is getting a reminder before the charge hits, not after. A proper tracker does three things a spreadsheet won't:

  • Emails you three days before a renewal
  • Shows your total monthly and yearly spend at a glance
  • Flags trials that are about to convert to paid

The 15-minute setup

You want Wallos — a free, open-source subscription tracker made for exactly this. It runs in one Docker container.

  1. On your home server (an old laptop works fine), install Docker if you haven't.
  2. Create a folder and drop in a docker-compose.yml file pointing at the bellamy/wallos image.
  3. Run docker compose up -d.
  4. Open http://your-server-ip:8282 in a browser.

That's it. No account signup with a stranger's company. The data lives on your machine.

Fill it once, benefit forever

Go through your last two bank statements. Every recurring line — Netflix, Spotify, iCloud, that VPN, the gym app — add it to Wallos with the price and renewal date.

This part stings. Most people discover they're spending $60–$120 a month on things they barely use. That number is the payoff. You can't cut what you can't see.

Turn on the reminders

Wallos can send email alerts before a renewal. Point it at a simple SMTP setup — even a free email account works. Set alerts for 3 days before each charge.

Now you get a nudge while you can still cancel, not a surprise on your statement.

Keep it private on your network

Don't expose this to the internet. You don't need to. Access it only over your home WiFi, or through a private tunnel like Tailscale if you want it on your phone while out.

A subscription list is a map of your habits and finances. Keep that map on hardware you own.

Your one action today

Pull up your last bank statement and count your recurring charges out loud. If you can't name what one of them is for, you found your first cancellation — and your first reason to build this.