In this review, I will be taking a look at a money-saving project called Digit. Actually, this review is a little different than what I usually write. Digit isn’t a way for you to make, lose, or spend money, but rather a way for you to easily save money!
In fact, I’ve been using Digit to save money for about four months now and I couldn’t be happier. I have had more money in savings than I ever would have if I been trying to save on my own until my car accident that is. But, lucky for me, my Digit savings paid for half of my new vehicle (can you say sweet dad van?!?). Since I am so happy with what Digit has done for me, I thought I’d share it with you, even though it doesn’t fit squarely in my niche.
I figure we all want to save money, so I think you’d all be interested in what Digit(Aff) has to offer.
Affiliate Disclaimer: You will find a few links to Digit throughout this review. According to my Core Principles and in order to comply with FTC Compliance Standards, if the link is an affiliate link, meaning I’ll make $5 if you sign up for Digit, it will be followed by “(Aff)”. Don’t worry, I’m not taking advantage of you. I only affiliate myself and earn money from products I would recommend to my closest friends and family. In fact, most websites online are making money from you, they just aren’t disclosing it to you!
Quick Review
Digit is an FDIC insured mobile savings platform created by Hello Digit, Inc. It tracks and analyzes your income and spending to determine exactly how much you can afford to save and when it’s best to save it. Digit then transfers that money to a separate savings account where it is easily accessible to you at any time.
Digit is run primarily from your mobile device using SMS messages as the primary mode of contact but also has a website where you can see more details regarding your savings and personal information.
Digit is a product I would highly recommend to anyone looking for easy ways to save money. It requires little to no effort and is completely free.
Digit Saving App Ratings
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10/10
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9.5/10
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10/10
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10/10
Summary
Product Name: Digit Saving App
Overall Rank: 9.9/10
Price: FREE
Owners: Hello Digit, Inc.
Website: www.digit.co (Aff)
Sign Up For Digit Here (Aff)
In-Depth Review
Now we get to the good stuff. From now on, I’ll be diving deep into exactly what Digit is and why I think it’s a product that could help everyone reading this save money. Since Digit is a fairly unusual type of product I’ll start by giving a rundown of just exactly how it works.
I’ll then go over everything I like about Digit followed by a few things I don’t like. Next I’ll give an overview of exactly what Digit is and how it works, chat about who could benefit most from using this product, discuss the support available to all users, talk about the price (hint: it’s free), and end by declaring my final verdict!
Let’s get started…
How Digit Works
Here is a basic rundown of how Digit works to save you money.
Step 1: Link your checking account to the Digit app through their website. To do this, you will need to have your routing and account numbers. You may also need to answer some security questions related to your checking account…good luck remembering those!
Step 2: Confirm your account via SMS. Soon after registering your account you’ll receive an SMS from Digit with a code to confirm the link.
Step 3: You wait for Digit to learn about your financial situation. During the first few days, Digit will not withdraw any money. This is because it is analyzing all of your income and expenses and figuring how much it can take and when.
Now you know how broke we are at the time of writing this post!
Step 4: Digit begins making transfers from your checking account to your Digit savings account. After Digit figures everything out, it will start saving you money in small, periodic amounts.
Step 5: Your balance grows. As time goes on, Digit will continue to save more and more.
It’s as simple as that. In just 5 steps, you can be on your way to saving money in a way you won’t even notice.
What I Like
Digit Works
I’ll cut right to the chase. Digit claims to help you save money and it does exactly that. Over the first four months, Digit saved over $450 without me even noticing that money is missing. That means over the course of a year it will have saved me over $1,600 assuming things continue as they are.
That’s $1,600 comes to about 5% of my total income for the year (not including income from Kirby’s Marketing). Instead of spending that 5% on unnecessary purchases, it is now in a savings account. As my Digit account continues to grow, it makes me feel great knowing that I have that money set aside for emergencies and/or future big purchases (aka a replacement car after my car accident).
It's Smart
Digit uses complex algorithms to analyze every penny coming and going from your checking account to determine just how much money it can withdraw without you even noticing and exactly when it can do so. This means the amount saved will be different for each and every user. Most likely, the more money you make, and fewer expenses you have, the more Digit will save for you.
Basically, Digit does the math, thinking, and planning for you, so you don’t have to. It will never save more money than you need to be comfortable. As your checking account becomes less, Digit will withdraw less. In fact, they are so confident in their algorithms that if, by chance, Digit does overdraft your account, they promise to pay all of the resulting fees.
It's Easy To Use
Do you know how to read? Do you know how to visit a website? Do you have a cell phone? Do you know how to send an SMS text message? If you answered yes to these questions, then you can use Digit.
A majority of your Digit experience is controlled via SMS text messages on your phone. You can check your balance, tell Digit to save more, get upcoming bill notifications, withdraw money, and complete many additional actions all from simple SMS messages.
Digit Has Personality
You might think communicating via SMS messages with a banking type of company would be incredibly boring. Well, you need to turn that thought around because Digit actually has a personality. It will respond to your messages accordingly. From time-to-time, it will make jokes, send encouraging words or entertaining images, or even inform you of important historical dates and related bits of knowledge, all the while keeping you updated on your balances, savings totals, upcoming bills, and other relevant information.
Is FDIC Insured
Don’t worry, Digit isn’t some random guy sitting behind a computer on the other side of the world trying to scam you out of your hard-earned money. In fact, Hello Digit, LLC is an officially recognized banking institution in the United States of America. Any of your funds held in a Digit savings account are FDIC insured up to $250,000.
No Fees, Minimums, Or Maximums
There are currently no fees whatsoever to take advantage of the services provided by Digit. It is completely free. In addition, there are no minimum or maximum limits to how much money you can have in your Digit savings at any point in time.
Is Available 24/7/365
You can have access to your money 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Any withdrawals you makes will be available in your checking count on the next business day. This certainly beats many other banking institutions I have used in the past where it takes 3-4 days to actually get access to my money.
Digit Is The Future Of Saving
In my opinion, Digit is breaking out into the future of banking and saving in the digital age. So long to the brick and mortar banks where people actually use paper and precious metals. Say hello to the completely digital, largely human-free banking platform.
Your entire experience with Digit takes place digitally on your phone and their website. It customizes your experience based on your earning and spending and does a better job than most people would at saving you money. If you don’t like this, I’m sorry to say that you better get used to this type of banking. Digit is one of the first, but it won’t be long until it has plenty of competition.
$5 Friend Referral Bonuses
That’s right, you can get paid $5 simply by telling your friends about a completely free way to save money. What could be better than that, especially since you don’t even have to sell anything? All you need to do is show your friends and family what Digit is. If it’s something they’re interested in and end up registering for, that's $5 added to your Digit savings!
Digit Plus Saves You Even More
Recently Digit added a new feature for all of its savers called Digit Plus. Digit Plus is a program where you earn $0.05 for every $100 you have in you Digit savings for three months, every three months. So, for every $100 you have in your savings for one year, you will earn an extra 0.20% each year. This bonus can either be paid directly into your checking account or be delivered as a gift card. Unfortunately, this means it isn't compound interest.
In the end, this works out to a yearly interest rate of 0.2 %, which isn't too great compared to some savings accounts, but it's better than nothing! Maybe this will increase in the future as Digit gets more and more customers.
Start Saving with Digit Now (Aff)
What I Don’t Like
Mobile Banking
I know I just went on a rant about getting used to the new way of banking in the digital age, but this definitely takes some getting used to. If I’m still getting used to it (being a relatively young person who is in touch with and embraces technological developments), then I’m sure mobile banking is extremely hard for many to grasp.
Requires Trust
At least for us Americans (my wife did 90% of her banking from her cell phone in South Africa), mobile banking is a relatively foreign concept to us, so it will take some getting used to. I find a lot of people are still reluctant to trust transactions done on the internet, let alone via text messages on their phones.
Also, for the most part, the human aspect of relationship building and seeing familiar faces when you walk into your local bank is minimal within Digit. However, for me, that’s not too much of a problem.
What You Get When You Sign Up
Digit is amazingly simple. In fact, this will probably be my shortest product overview write-up yet. Essentially, once you create an account with Digit and link it up to your checking account, there is nothing else for you to do other than watch your savings go up.
You have access to your account on their website. This just gives you basic information about your savings, how often it saves, how much per withdrawal, transaction histories, etc. All of this is literally on one single page.
Aside from the website, all of your other interactions with Digit will take place on your phone using whatever app you use to write and receive SMS messages. This is actually where Digit comes alive and starts to show you its quirky personality.
Basically, that’s it. There’s nothing more to it.
Customer Support
If you actually visit the website and click on the help link, you can either call or email their live, in-person customer support. This is a refreshing find since every other aspect of Digit is so…digital. It’s nice to know if you have problems you can actually talk to a real person and don’t have to listen to some automated voice and push random numbers.
Price
As I hinted at earlier, Digit is a completely free product. There are no expenses during sign-up and there are no upsells anywhere along the way.
That being said, in an abstract way, the price of Digit is the amount of money you aren’t saving by not taking advantage of the savings it could be building for you this very minute!
Final Opinion
Yes. Yes. Yes. If you haven’t caught on yet, I think Digit is probably one of the coolest, most innovative banking products out there. I don’t make much money right now from my job, but even so, I have managed to save hundreds of dollars in a few months thanks to Digit.
So, if you’re serious about increasing your savings in a completely hands off way, head on over to Digit and create your account(Aff). Remember, it is completely free! It will take 5-10 minutes to get started and, believe me, it will be well worth it in a few months when you look at your Digit savings!
If you have any questions about my experience with Digit or have used it or a similar product yourself, please leave me a comment below! I look forward from hearing from you.