134. Let Trim Negotiate Your Bills - Save $1,000 per year
Rather than combing through your bills for ways to save a couple dollars here and there, let Trim do it for you. Trim connects to your account using bank-level security, analyzes your spending and subscriptions, and finds ways you could be saving money.
Just ask Trim to cancel a subscription and it’s done. It can even negotiate your bills and find you a better rate on car insurance! And the best part — it’s completely free.
If you were to scan all your credit card and debit card statements, you would probably find at least one subscription you aren’t using. You might also find a couple of late fees or financial fees that you’ve long since forgotten. When you’ve automated bad habits, it’s tough to break them. To break my own bad habits, I started using a software called Trim.
Trim Helps Stop Recurring Charges
Trim bills itself as a virtual assistant that saves you money.
Its core competency is cancelling subscriptions that you aren’t using. Trim uses an algorithm to identify recurring charges, and it communicates with users via Text or Facebook Messenger.
To identify recurring charges, Trim has to look at your bank accounts. That means that you have to connect your accounts to the app. Trim uses an encryption service called Plaid to keep your data safe.
Plaid makes sure that Trim does not have access to your login information, and they have read only access to your accounts. Trim uses encryption for their website and database, and it requires 2 factor authentication for users. Your information is as safe as it would be at any banking institution.
After Trim identifies recurring charges, Trim will text (or Facebook Message) you to ask you if you want to cancel them.
If you reply, “Cancel ________.” Trim will do the cancellation for you. Trim doesn’t charge a fee for this service.
Unfortunately, the service isn’t perfect. I asked Trim to cancel an identity theft protection service I no longer wanted. It wasn’t able to, so I made the call myself. At least Trim brought the subscription to my attention.
On the whole, Trim seems to have great success cancelling gym memberships, box subscriptions, media subscriptions, and notoriously difficult cable TV contracts.
Ask Trim is a free service that helps you save money by cutting unused subscriptions & earning cash back.
