Getting out of contracts without losing your sanity

I recently had to cancel a gym membership (yeah, I know, classic story), and it was honestly a nightmare. They made me jump through hoops—had to send a certified letter, wait for confirmation, and still got charged an extra month because of some fine print I totally missed. Anyway, after that mess, I learned a pretty useful trick: whenever you sign up for something with a contract, immediately set a calendar reminder about two weeks before the renewal or cancellation deadline. Saved my butt when my streaming service tried to auto-renew at double the price.

Curious if anyone else has clever ways to dodge these sneaky contract traps. I'm sure there's gotta be more hacks out there...