App number 1. Get Chip
An app which is connected to your current bank account, monitors your income and expenditure and 'learns' when and how much little bits of cash can be moved from your account into a savings account with Chip. Savings are then paid at 3%, increasing via referrals to 5%.
Why did this interest me?
I consider myself to be on-top of my finances, checking daily and keeping a thorough record of my spending. I always assumed that when I have available and spare cash no matter now small that I would move it into a savings account. But looking back, I haven't ever actually done that. I save up to move over in bigger chunks.
The premise being that if you save small and regularly then I simply will not notice that the money is being moved out and into an ever-growing saving pot - which is receiving a decent interest return.
I had two concerns.
1. What happens if it takes me into overdraft? Their T&Cs state that if I go overdrawn and therefore incur fees because of a Chip transaction then they will pay the fees and a £10 good-will gesture. Concern mitigated.
2. I'm giving a new app, which I know very little about access to my primary bank account. This I only managed to get over because I read about the app via BBC. If I had stumbled across this only in the app-store I'm not sure I could take the plunge. Concern accepted.
What do I expect to feel/happen?
I'm really interested to see how this app works and learns and what it feels I can live without and therefore save. I generally have no pre-conceptions on the experience and really if it can save little bits here and there without me noticing that can only be a good thing.
What has happened so far.
I've signed up and it has moved £12.94 into a savings account so far with a further £10.34 pending to be moved across.
P.S. If somebody signs up with the referral code N9SJ6N will increase my savings interest rate by 1%. :)
App number 2. StepBet.
Again a referral from BBC led me to this and gave me the confidence to part with some money.
This, I admit is very unlike me. I've jumped into something and 'spent' £30 without doing much due-diligence at all.
However, it does fit very nicely into two things I am interested in. 1. Betting and winning money and 2. being motivated to do exercise.
The premise of this app is that you join and it takes a reading from your Apple 'health' App - which I have now discovered is constantly monitoring and storing my activity without me ever even opening up the app before. Once it's synced to your Health app - or other fitbit or similar - it calculates what it deems to be a challenging step count for the day and what it deems to be a stretch aim for steps per day.
Then you pay a fee of $40 and if you achieve each week for 6 weeks 4xstep challenge and 2xstretch step challenge each week for 6 weeks then you receive back money from a pool of people also in your challenge.
The amount which you receive back is dependent upon
a) you successfully complete the challenge. If you do not you $40 is down the drain.
b) as the money is pooled, the winning funds are divided by those who succeed. So if only half of your group ( a group is full of random people) succeed you split the winnings with them.
I think the idea that I could lose $40 is going to be a huge motivator for me :)
Whats happened so far?
The app has calculated that my daily step goal (to be achieved 4x per week) is 8,772 steps in a day and my stretch goal (to be achieved 2x per week) is 11,072 steps in a day.
I went on a small 2k run yesterday and did over the course of the day 9,878 steps and so I'm confident with stepping up my running I will be able to achieve this. It's fun though!
I am in a group of people with 341 other strangers with a prize pool of £13k. If we all succeed I get my money back. If half do I should double my money etc.
Interesting it certainly is.
They try and make a community out of it, but my immediate thought was and is... I hope you all fail and I succeed so I can make maximum money. Which is pretty awful of me!
Wish me luck in letting an AI bot save me more money and walking/running far enough to win a bet!!!!
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