August 27, 2018 • 4 mins
A look at three apps - Blast, Grand and Long Game Savings - that encourage people to save money by turning the process into a game. Earn money while playing your favorite games, win weekly prizes and play lottery style games to earn more on top of your savings account.TV segment and links to the apps mentioned:https://ktla.com/2018/08/27/apps-that-make-saving-money-fun/Follow Rich on Social Media:Facebook: http://facebook.com/RichOnTechTwitter: http://twitter.com/richdemuroInstagram: http://instagram.com/richontech Easy ways to listen on your phone or smart speaker:"Hey Google, Play the Rich on Tech Podcast""Hey Siri, Play the Rich on Tech Podcast""Alexa, Enable the Rich on Tech Flash Briefing"
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
The apps that make saving money a game. What's going on,
I'm rich tomorrow. This is rich on Tech. Saving money
isn't always easy. That's why there's a whole bunch of
new apps that make savings fun. Basically, they turn saving
money into a game. Let's take a look at three
of them. First up is Blast. This is a new
app from the founder of the popular savings app Acorns,
(00:25):
which rounds up your purchases and then saves the difference.
The new app lets you earn little bits of cash
by playing the games you already love, like Candy Crush
and Words with Friends, basically any game available on Google Play.
We talked to Walter Cruttendon, CEO of Blast.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
It just makes savings fun versus right now, savings is
kind of boring and difficult, and yet there's two point
six billion gamers, So if we can get some of
them to save, then we're helping the world a little bit.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
So to make it work, you set triggers with your
favorite games based on how long you play or accomplishing
in game achievements. There's also a leader board where you're
competing against other Blast savers. This gives you chances to
win extra cash weekly, and no doubt it encourages you
to keep using the app.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
So what we're trying to do is add an even
better outcome. Yes, games do teach you things like iye
hand coordination and time management skills and resource allocation skills
that they're finding all these benefits to it. But if
you can even save money in addition to it, that's
the message we'd like to get across. Because if you
start early saving money, you don't have to save much
(01:36):
every day for it to be a large.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
A bound in the future.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Blast is free, there are no fees, and your money
saved earns one percent interest. You do have to link
your bank account eventually to get your earnings. Average users
are earning up to a dollar a day. Next up
is an app called Long Game Savings. This is an
app that rewards you with virtual coins when you save money,
so the money you save is always safe, it's always there,
it never goes away. But you can use the coins
(02:01):
that you earn to win even more money playing fun
little games inspired by things like slots and scratchers. You
can win up to a million dollars playing these games.
Prizes are awarded in cash or cryptocurrency. There are no
fees to join or play, plus you earn one percent
interest on your money that you save. So how does
Long Game make money? Well, the company says it gets
(02:22):
a referral fee every time someone opens up a new
savings account. They keep some of this money and use
the rest for prizes and operations. Long Game is available
on iOS and Android. Finally, a new app called Grand
just launched in the App Store. Every dollar you save
gets you an entry in a weekly contest. These contests
give away cash prizes that can range from a few
(02:44):
dollars up to thousands of dollars. One thousand winners are
announced every Friday at two pm Eastern. We talked to
Matt Cohen, CEO of Grand.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
I think it's pretty udisputable that people stink its saving.
So seventy percent of the country has less than one
thousand dollars saved. So it turns out savings really boring
and not fun at all. There's no immediate gratification to it,
and you know you have to wait a long time
to see the payoff. So we thought it might be
interesting to make savings feel more like spending, and when
people are spending, kind of in pursuit of large prizes.
(03:15):
It turns out they end up changing their behavior.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Grand is a plan on something called prize linked savings,
which is popular in Asia and Europe.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
There's an interesting proxy in the UK called Free Postcode
Lottery where people just kind of sign up for a
chance to win daily cash and on a savings basis.
There's something called premium bonds and forty percent of the
UK saves that way, where they forego interest in pursuit
of monthly prizes between twenty five pounds and a million pounds.
(03:45):
And we think there's no way we can't be that
ubiquitous platform in the US giving very large prizes away
and kind of helping a lot of people in the process.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Grand pays one percent on your savings. With them, you
can withdraw your money at any time. The big difference
here is that the app does charge it tow dollar
monthly fee for your savings account. So bottom line, are
these apps worth it? Perhaps if they motivate you to
save more money than you usually would. The chance of
winning some extra cash is also kind of nice, but
you could earn more interest in a standard high yield
(04:13):
online savings account. According to nerdwallet, some of the top
accounts are paying one point eight five percent interest on
your savings with no fees at all. So the way
I see it, you're sort of paying point eight five
percent interest on your money in order to perhaps win
some more money. So really it comes down to your
goals and whether these apps will help you meet them.
If you want links to all these money saving apps,
(04:35):
you can go to my website. It is richon tech
dot tv. I'm Rich Damiro. Thanks so much for listening.
I'll talk to you real soon
The apps that make saving money a game. What's going on,
I'm rich tomorrow. This is rich on Tech. Saving money
isn't always easy. That's why there's a whole bunch of
new apps that make savings fun. Basically, they turn saving
money into a game. Let's take a look at three
of them. First up is Blast. This is a new
app from the founder of the popular savings app Acorns,
(00:25):
which rounds up your purchases and then saves the difference.
The new app lets you earn little bits of cash
by playing the games you already love, like Candy Crush
and Words with Friends, basically any game available on Google Play.
We talked to Walter Cruttendon, CEO of Blast.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
It just makes savings fun versus right now, savings is
kind of boring and difficult, and yet there's two point
six billion gamers, So if we can get some of
them to save, then we're helping the world a little bit.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
So to make it work, you set triggers with your
favorite games based on how long you play or accomplishing
in game achievements. There's also a leader board where you're
competing against other Blast savers. This gives you chances to
win extra cash weekly, and no doubt it encourages you
to keep using the app.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
So what we're trying to do is add an even
better outcome. Yes, games do teach you things like iye
hand coordination and time management skills and resource allocation skills
that they're finding all these benefits to it. But if
you can even save money in addition to it, that's
the message we'd like to get across. Because if you
start early saving money, you don't have to save much
(01:36):
every day for it to be a large.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
A bound in the future.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Blast is free, there are no fees, and your money
saved earns one percent interest. You do have to link
your bank account eventually to get your earnings. Average users
are earning up to a dollar a day. Next up
is an app called Long Game Savings. This is an
app that rewards you with virtual coins when you save money,
so the money you save is always safe, it's always there,
it never goes away. But you can use the coins
(02:01):
that you earn to win even more money playing fun
little games inspired by things like slots and scratchers. You
can win up to a million dollars playing these games.
Prizes are awarded in cash or cryptocurrency. There are no
fees to join or play, plus you earn one percent
interest on your money that you save. So how does
Long Game make money? Well, the company says it gets
(02:22):
a referral fee every time someone opens up a new
savings account. They keep some of this money and use
the rest for prizes and operations. Long Game is available
on iOS and Android. Finally, a new app called Grand
just launched in the App Store. Every dollar you save
gets you an entry in a weekly contest. These contests
give away cash prizes that can range from a few
(02:44):
dollars up to thousands of dollars. One thousand winners are
announced every Friday at two pm Eastern. We talked to
Matt Cohen, CEO of Grand.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
I think it's pretty udisputable that people stink its saving.
So seventy percent of the country has less than one
thousand dollars saved. So it turns out savings really boring
and not fun at all. There's no immediate gratification to it,
and you know you have to wait a long time
to see the payoff. So we thought it might be
interesting to make savings feel more like spending, and when
people are spending, kind of in pursuit of large prizes.
(03:15):
It turns out they end up changing their behavior.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
Grand is a plan on something called prize linked savings,
which is popular in Asia and Europe.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
There's an interesting proxy in the UK called Free Postcode
Lottery where people just kind of sign up for a
chance to win daily cash and on a savings basis.
There's something called premium bonds and forty percent of the
UK saves that way, where they forego interest in pursuit
of monthly prizes between twenty five pounds and a million pounds.
(03:45):
And we think there's no way we can't be that
ubiquitous platform in the US giving very large prizes away
and kind of helping a lot of people in the process.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Grand pays one percent on your savings. With them, you
can withdraw your money at any time. The big difference
here is that the app does charge it tow dollar
monthly fee for your savings account. So bottom line, are
these apps worth it? Perhaps if they motivate you to
save more money than you usually would. The chance of
winning some extra cash is also kind of nice, but
you could earn more interest in a standard high yield
(04:13):
online savings account. According to nerdwallet, some of the top
accounts are paying one point eight five percent interest on
your savings with no fees at all. So the way
I see it, you're sort of paying point eight five
percent interest on your money in order to perhaps win
some more money. So really it comes down to your
goals and whether these apps will help you meet them.
If you want links to all these money saving apps,
(04:35):
you can go to my website. It is richon tech
dot tv. I'm Rich Damiro. Thanks so much for listening.
I'll talk to you real soon
Host
Rich DeMuro
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