It’s easy to let your finances go awry. And we are not talking anything major here – nothing disastrous like bankruptcy or home foreclosure, those kind of world-moving misfortunes which can ruin someone. No, it’s the little things: unused subscriptions, overdraft fees, and unnecessary purchases.
As the saying goes, it’s all in the details, and those buggers certainly do add up. Trapped in the hurried flow of modern life, it’s sometimes difficult to step back and get an objective view of your spending. We may feel very much an automaton; once a habit develops, it’s difficult, or almost impossible, to break.
This is exactly where a money saving app like Trim comes in handy. Acting as a kind of virtual personal assistant, Trim keeps you on track. Using what we can loosely describe as “artificial intelligence”, the Trim app identifies unnecessary costs and bad spending habits.
As Modest Money’s review of Trim suggests, you could potentially save hundreds of dollars a month depending on your financial situation.
Originally founded in 2015 by suave, forward-thinking entrepreneurial duo Daniel Petkevich and Thomas Smyth, Trim has since been on a mission to help the average American cut down on costs. With its novel approach to negotiating down utility bill payments, the application has filled a genuine need in the market.
An easy to use and intuitive application, Trim makes available the bulk of its services to non-subscribers.
For the value, we think Trim is one of the best finance applications out there – even if it only knocks off a pesky reoccurring subscription or two. With a history of saving customers money, there is really no reason not to give it a shot.
Let’s look at some of Trim’s significant features.
Notable Features of Trim
- Cancel Reoccurring Subscriptions: we are probably all guilty of paying for subscriptions that we no longer use; what’s more, we often forget about them entirely. Forgotten, these monthly subscription fees add up. What Trim does is highlight any reoccurring subscription and enable you to cancel it with a single the click of a button – simple as that.
- Bill Renegotiation: this may be the most valuable feature of Trim. Often, customers do not know they are being overcharged. There is really no magic formula here; upload your bills to Trim and let the application get to work. It’s likely the case that the customer simply does not know what to ask their service providers – there may be hidden fees, old charges that should have disappeared, or any number of odd, little things. Trim reports that the average user saves a staggering $250 a year by using their renegotiation services.
- Money Tracking: though not billed as a budgeting app, Trim does allow users to keep watch over their money flow: what’s going in, and what’s going out. Included are automatic alerts for upcoming bills, highlighted spending habits, and the ability to estimate your current total net worth. Though it lacks some of the robust features of apps that are geared primarily toward budgeting, Trim will still do the job.
- Trim Savings: in an unprecedented move, Trim has established a working relationship with Visa in order to enable users to take advantage of “cashback” on retail purchases. This is essentially free money: a few dollars here and there can add up. Really, this feature is the antithesis of reoccurring subscriptions – unconsciously earn money, not lose it.
Drawbacks of Trim
Trim is certainly a handy application, but it is not an “end all” to your financial burdens. While its primary features are renegotiations and the cancellation of reoccurring subscriptions, it does lack the kind of comprehensive goal setting that is a hallmark of applications such as Tiller Money.
There are also no investment tools. This is not so unusual, but the added bonus of stock investment opportunities would have been a huge plus.
Trim Pricing
Trim offers a “free” version of their service whereby users can access the bulk of its features. Alternatively, subscribers pay $99 a year.
The free version is fine, but be aware that non-subscribers will be charged 33% of savings made by their bill renegotiation service. In our eyes, this is still a win-win situation for consumers who are currently being overcharged.
The Bottom Line
While not an end-all solution to your financial woes, Trim is certainly the kind of application that can help you get back on track.
By renegotiating your bills and alerting you to useless monthly payments, there are real savings to be had here. We think this is especially noticeable in the first year or so of using the app – beyond that, savings may be somewhat negligible.
All in all, this is the kind of technology that serves you – even if one opts for the subscriber service at $99 a year, you are bound to turn a profit.