Hate saving money? Forget to pay yourself first? I remember those days! Well, let me tell you those days are over. If you don’t put a value on saving money for yourself, then this new service is going to help you tremendously. Seriously. I signed up in less than 5 minutes and everything was automated from then on. Let me tell you about Digit, the new way to save money without even thinking about it. Here is my Digit review for anyone looking to jump on the savings train.
I wanted to give you a little insight into how Digit has changed the way I save money. While I have a number of savings methods, like the savings buckets, nothing has compared to what I get with Digit. Before I go forward, I want to remind you that Digit doesn’t pay you interest on your savings. If that irritates you, then you might choose a different method to save. They do have a service called “Digit Plus,” which pays you $0.05 for every $100 you leave in your account for three months.
This doesn’t bother me because earning a paltry interest rate on savings is not worth it to me. I don’t keep my money in low-interest savings accounts. I move it around and use it to earn better rates. Depending on my needs, I will throw it in my Roth IRA with Betterment or do some investing in my individual accounts at Scottrade or Motif Investing. Anyway, let me get back on track about Digit and how I save my money.
Before I found Digit (4 months ago), I was using a few methods to save money. I used buckets, but also automated my savings each and every month. Beyond that, I also treated my savings like a monthly bill. I consider it an expense that has to be paid. I thought my savings methods were pretty sound. This is from a guy who used to be in a lot of debt and would spend more than I earned. I wasn’t good with my money. Oh, what three years will do for you.
When Digit came into my life, it combined two things I really love: math and automation. Since I already automated much of my finances, this wasn’t a big win, but where Digit changed my game is how they automate your savings. Not only do they work through text messages and simple commands, but hooking into your checking account is the game changer.
I’m a huge fan of automation. I feel it’s the best way to save money. I automate money going into my Roth and other retirement accounts. For any savings method, I love automation. The only thing I don’t automate when saving is when I treat one of my accounts like a monthly bill. It’s an expense for me and I want to make sure it’s paid. Automation is great, but you still need to keep an eye on everything.
This is where Digit excels and wins in my book. When you hook it into your checking account, it doesn’t just start taking out money like a hacker. The service analyzes your financial situation. It looks over your balances and looks at your spending. Then it comes up with a plan that constantly learns about you. It saves each and every week based on your balances and your spending. There is nothing easier.
The best part is their overdraft policy. If they take too much out of your account, which then causes you to overdraft, then they will pay your overdraft fee (reimburse you for it). What’s better than that? This means they are really sure of their savings algorithm. I like the confidence they exude.
Automation and mathematics are two things that get my shimmy to shake!
Digit is heavily mobile oriented. While they do have a website at digit.co, their main focus is on mobile. Actually, there is not much to their main website. It’s very mobile-friendly. Digit runs off text messages. You can start your savings, stop your savings, add more, and much more. They also give you weekly updates via text. I like they way they do it. Each week is a different in how they greet you.
The last few greetings were “Good day Grayson,” “Namaste Grayson,” and “Konnichiwa Grayson.” These are the lead ins to what you current bank balance is. They compare it to last week’s balance. It gives you a quick view into how your bank account is doing. So, they are not just helping you save, but also provide insights into your checking account balance. Cool!
In a nutshell, the last four months have been awesome in my savings. It has grown by leaps and bounds with all of my methods, but Digit has me happier than anything. The simplicity makes savings easier than one would think. The technology is cool and doesn’t complicate your finances. The mobile access is great for those who have a smartphone and don’t mind getting and using text messages. I’m happy I signed up for my free Digit account. I’m sure you will be as well.
If you want to accelerate your savings and start your way into a savings mindset, then get a free Digit account. It takes less than 5 minutes to sign up and get saving. Digit can help those who don’t think they have any money to save or those who want to automate most of the process. So, if you are one of those (I’m sure that is anyone), then go get your Digit on!
I hope it changes the way you save money like it did for me!
This looks like a great idea for people who are having problems saving any money. I see where they basically keep the interest that the money earns while in the Digit account. Do you know if they are going to give people some return on that money in the future?
They are planning an interest rate at some point, but I don’t know when.
That’s exactly why their service is awesome. It shows you what wiggle room you might still have in your budget to save more. That’s the entire point and why I use and recommend their free service.
Hi Grayson thanks for this great review! I should definitely check out this Digit.
You’re most welcome. You really should. It’s free and easy to set up and use.
I was a digit user and saved 800.00 in 5 months without even noticing it – which is why I think it is a great premise. However, I recently cancelled my account because they have no ability to provide a statement of transactions. That’s right, you heard me — a bank that cannot provide a detailed list of all transactions for any given period of time.
Sure, you can see a history of deposits but there is no way to get a complete list without either writing every one down, or inputting manually into a spreadsheet. No ability to export the data. And, they can’t even give you one if you request it. WTF?
Stay away until you have the ability to get transaction statements online. Welcome to online banking with digit…thumbs down!
While it may be weird they don’t have that ability and I hope they add it in the future, I wouldn’t drop them because of it. That is something most people don’t check or wouldn’t think to check. That being said, I can put those listings in a spreadsheet and have them compared in less than 3 minutes (you don’t have to manually enter each one). It’s not a difficult task in Excel, plus I have to export out the information from my bank with the withdrawals, so that works out perfectly. I wouldn’t sit there and eye compare them anyway.
I’m sorry you don’t like the service anymore because of it, but look what it was able to provide you. It saved you $800 you didn’t even notice. That’s something that many people with money problems need. That’s why Digit is good for those people.
I absolutely agree that it works, I was very pleased with the results. However, I am curious what method you are using to get those transactions imported into a spreadsheet in “less than 3 minutes”. I could not find an export option and support stated they could not send them to me in a .csv either. That tells me they are not exportable. I am an advanced Excel user myself so that doesn’t portion scare me, I would be fine with that. Did I miss something? If that function is available I would start another account.
You don’t need an export option. You can open all of the transactions (clicking the “View More History” link) until you have all of your transactions. You can then highlight and copy those to Notepad or some other text editor and paste special those values in Excel. If you want to clean it up, find/replace ” saved on” and ” Digit Plus bonus on” then text to columns with a space. That puts the amount in the first column and the date in the second. There you have it. Less than three minutes and all of them are in Excel. You could also write a quick macro that does it if you wanted to, but this is so easy, I wouldn’t waste my time with the macro. You don’t need an export. It’s just text values that can easily be pushed into Excel with a few clicks and clean up.
My concern is that we used a reward credit card for most of our daily purchases and then make lump payments out of the checking account every two weeks. Would this throw off their algo if they can’t track all of the line items?
As far as a transaction record, you could possibly use something like the Tasker app on Android (not sure of the iphone equivalent) to take text messages from digit and record the data into a google sheet.