Speaker 1: The apps that make saving money a game. What's going on,
Speaker 1: I'm rich tomorrow. This is rich on Tech. Saving money
Speaker 1: isn't always easy. That's why there's a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: new apps that make savings fun. Basically, they turn saving
Speaker 1: money into a game. Let's take a look at three
Speaker 1: of them. First up is Blast. This is a new
Speaker 1: app from the founder of the popular savings app Acorns,
Speaker 1: which rounds up your purchases and then saves the difference.
Speaker 1: The new app lets you earn little bits of cash
Speaker 1: by playing the games you already love, like Candy Crush
Speaker 1: and Words with Friends, basically any game available on Google Play.
Speaker 1: We talked to Walter Cruttendon, CEO of Blast.
Speaker 2: It just makes savings fun versus right now, savings is
Speaker 2: kind of boring and difficult, and yet there's two point
Speaker 2: six billion gamers, So if we can get some of
Speaker 2: them to save, then we're helping the world a little bit.
Speaker 1: So to make it work, you set triggers with your
Speaker 1: favorite games based on how long you play or accomplishing
Speaker 1: in game achievements. There's also a leader board where you're
Speaker 1: competing against other Blast savers. This gives you chances to
Speaker 1: win extra cash weekly, and no doubt it encourages you
Speaker 1: to keep using the app.
Speaker 2: So what we're trying to do is add an even
Speaker 2: better outcome. Yes, games do teach you things like iye
Speaker 2: hand coordination and time management skills and resource allocation skills
Speaker 2: that they're finding all these benefits to it. But if
Speaker 2: you can even save money in addition to it, that's
Speaker 2: the message we'd like to get across. Because if you
Speaker 2: start early saving money, you don't have to save much
Speaker 2: every day for it to be a large.
Speaker 3: A bound in the future.
Speaker 1: Blast is free, there are no fees, and your money
Speaker 1: saved earns one percent interest. You do have to link
Speaker 1: your bank account eventually to get your earnings. Average users
Speaker 1: are earning up to a dollar a day. Next up
Speaker 1: is an app called Long Game Savings. This is an
Speaker 1: app that rewards you with virtual coins when you save money,
Speaker 1: so the money you save is always safe, it's always there,
Speaker 1: it never goes away. But you can use the coins
Speaker 1: that you earn to win even more money playing fun
Speaker 1: little games inspired by things like slots and scratchers. You
Speaker 1: can win up to a million dollars playing these games.
Speaker 1: Prizes are awarded in cash or cryptocurrency. There are no
Speaker 1: fees to join or play, plus you earn one percent
Speaker 1: interest on your money that you save. So how does
Speaker 1: Long Game make money? Well, the company says it gets
Speaker 1: a referral fee every time someone opens up a new
Speaker 1: savings account. They keep some of this money and use
Speaker 1: the rest for prizes and operations. Long Game is available
Speaker 1: on iOS and Android. Finally, a new app called Grand
Speaker 1: just launched in the App Store. Every dollar you save
Speaker 1: gets you an entry in a weekly contest. These contests
Speaker 1: give away cash prizes that can range from a few
Speaker 1: dollars up to thousands of dollars. One thousand winners are
Speaker 1: announced every Friday at two pm Eastern. We talked to
Speaker 1: Matt Cohen, CEO of Grand.
Speaker 3: I think it's pretty udisputable that people stink its saving.
Speaker 3: So seventy percent of the country has less than one
Speaker 3: thousand dollars saved. So it turns out savings really boring
Speaker 3: and not fun at all. There's no immediate gratification to it,
Speaker 3: and you know you have to wait a long time
Speaker 3: to see the payoff. So we thought it might be
Speaker 3: interesting to make savings feel more like spending, and when
Speaker 3: people are spending, kind of in pursuit of large prizes.
Speaker 3: It turns out they end up changing their behavior.
Speaker 1: Grand is a plan on something called prize linked savings,
Speaker 1: which is popular in Asia and Europe.
Speaker 3: There's an interesting proxy in the UK called Free Postcode
Speaker 3: Lottery where people just kind of sign up for a
Speaker 3: chance to win daily cash and on a savings basis.
Speaker 3: There's something called premium bonds and forty percent of the
Speaker 3: UK saves that way, where they forego interest in pursuit
Speaker 3: of monthly prizes between twenty five pounds and a million pounds.
Speaker 3: And we think there's no way we can't be that
Speaker 3: ubiquitous platform in the US giving very large prizes away
Speaker 3: and kind of helping a lot of people in the process.
Speaker 1: Grand pays one percent on your savings. With them, you
Speaker 1: can withdraw your money at any time. The big difference
Speaker 1: here is that the app does charge it tow dollar
Speaker 1: monthly fee for your savings account. So bottom line, are
Speaker 1: these apps worth it? Perhaps if they motivate you to
Speaker 1: save more money than you usually would. The chance of
Speaker 1: winning some extra cash is also kind of nice, but
Speaker 1: you could earn more interest in a standard high yield
Speaker 1: online savings account. According to nerdwallet, some of the top
Speaker 1: accounts are paying one point eight five percent interest on
Speaker 1: your savings with no fees at all. So the way
Speaker 1: I see it, you're sort of paying point eight five
Speaker 1: percent interest on your money in order to perhaps win
Speaker 1: some more money. So really it comes down to your
Speaker 1: goals and whether these apps will help you meet them.
Speaker 1: If you want links to all these money saving apps,
Speaker 1: you can go to my website. It is richon tech
Speaker 1: dot tv. I'm Rich Damiro. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you real soon