My family is trying to reign in our credit card spending and we recently ran into a little surprise. A card that we had paid off, cut into two and all but forgotten existed was the subject of an email asking if I was planning on paying towards the balance. Since I had cut the card in half six months ago, I was really curious what balance was being talked about. And how much it was going to cost me.

Apparently, I had Hulu attached to the card. My old Hulu account that we didn't use anymore because now we had Hulu in my wife's name through some offer or another and were "saving" money.

For six months I was being charged $6 each month and it eventually got the card company to trigger off an automated email. To make matters worse, it had been well over a year since we moved to a different Hulu account and we just never got around to closing the original. That's over $100 that I've just thrown away because I'm forgetful and/or lazy.

I hated giving away $100 but thought that was the end of it.

Now I am not very happy that I gave away $100, but what's done is done and I was ready to move on. My wife the accountant, however, weelllllll let's just say she decided to take a look and see what recurring payments I was making.

Recurring payments are those amounts, usually small, that you get charged every month for a good, service, or subscription. And I have a handful of them, including some that I have no idea what they are or how they got there, and more importantly how to stop them.