I still have a little over a year left on my NordVPN subscription (bought 3 years for $80 awhile back), but as soon as that's over I'll be switching to Mullvad. I prefer their stance on privacy, and I like the private payment options.
I pulled the plug on Nord years ago and haven’t looked back.
Steady the course my friend.
NordVPN and all the other janky services in that space do a couple things adequately, you can pretend to be from another country and get some duck-and-cover on things like torrents, if your ISP doesn't like that kind of thing.
I'm in the same boat, basically. Would it be nice to have a VPN which takes actual security seriously? Sure, of course, but until the end of the year, what $VPN does do is paid for, and I don't care enough, in isolation, about what Mullvad offers vs what I'm getting for free.
Next time my wallet comes out is a different story.