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TIL those 'free' budgeting apps can cost you more than you think
I was using one of those popular apps that links to your bank for a full year, thinking it was helping me save. The thing is, it kept pushing me toward their 'partner' deals for loans and credit cards. I finally looked at my spending and saw I'd signed up for two store cards I didn't need just because the app said I was 'pre-approved'. That was about $40 in yearly fees right there, plus the interest when I carried a small balance one month. The worst part was the mental tax of seeing all those ads dressed up as 'tips'. I switched to a plain old spreadsheet last month and my cash flow is way clearer. Has anyone else ditched a fancy app for something simpler and been surprised?
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shane6557mo ago
They're basically just lead generators for lenders...
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jamesm487mo ago
Shane's right, they're lead gen in a trench coat. The creepiest part is how they use your own spending data to pick which ads to show. My old app saw I bought a coffee every Tuesday and started showing me "special" high interest loan offers for "people like me" on Wednesdays.
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