This week at The Plum Diary, we’re chatting to Sallie, a 51-year-old doula from Surrey.

When Sallie’s not busy bringing new life into the world, she’s getting savvy with her savings.

Let’s take a closer look at how she’s using Plum to break free from her overdraft 👊

Sallie’s saving struggle 🧗‍♀️

Saving can often feel like an impossible mountain to climb.

We’ve already heard how Lucie struggled to break the cycle of living paycheck-to-paycheck, and how Dave had to change his frame of mind around money before he could start stashing the cash.

For Sallie, saving seemed like something other people did. Even when she did have a few extra pennies, she found herself having to spend them before she could even think about setting them aside 💸

“There’s never been a lot of spare cash and there’s always something that’s been needed. The money isn’t being flitted away, but it’s like if the kids need new shoes for example”.

While Sallie’s purse strings have had to adapt to the changing needs of her family, she does have a guilty pleasure...“I’m a bit of a bad one for blowing it on holidays. I’m always the one to say ‘Oh let’s just book a week away then’”.

With the COVID-19 pandemic putting sun, sea and sand on the backburner, Sallie has had a chance to change her ways. “I’m trying to be good”.

We believe in you, Sallie 🙏

Round Ups really do lead to Pound Ups 🆙

A couple of months ago, Sallie’s daughter told her about an app that rounded up your purchases to the nearest pound.

The idea of tucking away a few coppers here and there brought back serious nostalgic vibes for Sallie. “My Nan always used to say look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves”.

This old proverb has a lot of sense to it. Even the throwaway change we accumulate can add up to something meaningful… like a holiday 🌴

Wanting to replicate that piggy bank feeling, Sallie thought “I quite like the sound of that” and double-checked with her daughter that Plum was completely safe 🔒

“I did the whole ‘Is it safe, you’re giving them access to your bank details?’ and she said ‘Yes, yes, we checked it out’ so I thought ‘Okay, I’ll give it a go’”.

Exploring the Plum app 🧭

Although Sallie originally downloaded Plum to max out on Round Ups, she got a bit carried away checking out all the other features the app has to offer.

“I thought it was really good that you can choose the level of savings that would work best for you”.

By setting a saving mood, you can control how much Plum’s AI tucks away. While Sallie admits she’s “feeling a bit flush” right now, she acknowledges that it might not last forever 🌈 “Obviously there are going to be times when I haven’t got much money coming in, so I’ll need to reduce it”.

Building up savings with Plum has also prompted Sallie to think about her personal finance strategy, and ways she can earn interest on her money.

As a first step, she’s decided to try and fill up her Easy Access Interest Pocket as much as possible rather than her Primary one.

Our Easy Access Interest Pockets (provided by Investec) 🏦 enable you to earn 0.25% AER interest on the money you save with us. Interest is calculated on the balance in the Pocket at the end of each day, and applied each working morning.

Our Primary Pockets, on the other hand, do not offer the added benefit of interest, but they do provide much faster withdrawal times.

With the Easy Access Interest Pockets, you must provide notice of 1 working day when you want to withdraw your money. This is compared to the Primary Pocket, where withdrawals can typically be processed within 5 minutes.

As Sallie’s aim is to build up long-term savings, she feels comfortable with the slightly longer withdrawal time of the Easy Access Interest Pockets. “I’ve enjoyed seeing those numbers climbing”.

Her all-time favourite part of the Plum app though has to be the way that the algorithm which powers our chatbot works.

“I love, love, love your messages and the bits at the end like ‘Have a good day’, or ‘Today’s going to be amazing’”.

Aww Sallie, you’ve made our day 💜

Sallie’s plan to get out of her overdraft 📈

Now that Sallie’s discovered everything the Plum app has to offer, she’s planning to achieve a big financial goal.

“I’d like to get my overdraft cleared, which is something the Plum app said it could help me with”.

If you find that overspending is the main source of your overdraft, we can help you keep track of your purchases with our interface that allows you to view all your bank accounts and credit cards in one place.

You can also view a balance which has been adjusted to account for any regular bills due before your next payday 📲

In addition, if you think that debt consolidation might be the most appropriate option, we can scan the market to find the best rates for personal loans.

And that’s not even mentioning our Overdraft Savings feature. Once this has been enabled, Plum can keep making automatic savings for you even when you’re in your overdraft. While this may sound a little counterintuitive, the idea is that you can save up to pay off your overdraft in full 💰

As Sallie shared with us, this approach works much better for her. “When I just see my overdraft go down a bit I think ‘Ooh I can spend that bit that’s there’, so having the savings being made is great”.

Having already tucked away a neat £1,000, Sallie is sure to get that overdraft cleared in no time!

Spreading the Plum word ☎️

With her bank balance looking a little fuller, Sallie could not be happier. “For the first time in my life, I have savings!”.

She’s also told us that the Plum app occupies a very special place on her phone homepage.

“I’m getting a little bit addicted to checking it now. I’m also telling lots of people about it and spreading the word among my peer group”.

Good on you, Sallie. We look forward to meeting all your Plumster friends soon 👋

Do you have a Plum story to tell? Let us know by emailing us at press@withplum.com

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