Plum Savings Review - Artificial Intelligent App that grows your money automatically!

Start automatically saving investing in the UK with Plum

First things first....This app is absolutely amazing and carries very little risk when using the savings feature. Best of all it is totally free for the basic features. I have managed to squirral away savings without even thinking about it and it soon adds up. If you do decide to move up a level and take advantage of the paid versions then the investment option did allow me to grow my money too. Be aware though, although I think the risk is lower than trading directly with online stockbrokers, there is of course a risk to your money as investments can and do go down. Don't go into it thinking it's a get rich quick scheme, but for me it certainly appears to be less volatile as your money is invested in managed funds that has a mixture of stocks and bonds therefore hopefully spreading your risk.

To date my investments have gained me nearly £100 since I started using Plum 12 months ago and that would have been impossible to gain on interest in a standard bank account. Do also bear in mind this is money that was automatically saved and invested for me so whilst the money has grown by £100.00 I also have gained a significant pot of money in addition to this without even trying.

How does Plum Work?

In it's simplest free 'Basic' mode Plum links to your main bank account through Open Banking and regularly analyses your incoming and outgoings and then decides how much you can afford to put aside. It then makes a request to your bank account (via Direct Debit) to put the funds in your Plum account. As it's Direct Debit, do be aware it can take a few days for your deposit to appear in your Plum account. Even using the basic free option there is now an Easy Access Savings 'Pocket' currently offering 0.25% AER interest. There are also other paid for versions that give you access to better functionality and improved interest rate up to 0.40% and whilst this isn't great you won't find much better now that the National Savings and Investments (NS&I) disapointingly dropped their rate to just 0.15% for their instant access savings account!

Note: Do be aware though it takes a little longer to get money back from the savings accounts (next working day) and this is then transferred into your 'Primary Pocket'. From here you can transfer your money back to your main bank account should you need it. Just a bit of planning required as you can't get your money back instantly such as using faster payments on your usual bank account.

I did try other savings apps but many didn't support my bank account fully so whilst they could still save money for me, it wasn't intelligent leaving me open to risk of entering my overdraft since it didn't know my balance or when and how much my monthly bills were.

Plum only operates as an app from Apple or Google stores and has no website based version although the signup is easier via their website withplum.com

I have found that I do have to keep an eye on how much it takes from my main bank account but that's probably because I do a significant amount of moving money around to and from different bank accounts to get rewards and other perks that require minimum deposits per month but just something to be aware of. You can adjust and control it's behaviour as detailed in the 'Brain' below.

The 'Brain' of the Plum app

At the heart of the App is what they call the 'Brain'. The Brain allows you to decide how money is set aside from your main bank account. You're in full control here and you can turn On/Off automatic deposits, pause them for a week, 2 weeks, a month or even a custom option.

You can tweak the 'Mood' to control how much or little you want it to set aside for you ranging across six different levels including the default 'normal' mood.

There is an Overdraft Deposts option that allows the app to still put money away for you when you are overdrawn. Not sure this is advisable but I suppose it depends on your overdraft costs but doesn't make sense to me so I've go this off.

Of course the different tiers offer different levels of access in the brain giving more functionality with the paid versions. Initially I started with the basic free version but wanted access to the investments feature that is only offered in the paid versions but can be accessed from the Pro version at just £1.00 per month so as long as you can see your investments growing at a rate of at least £1.00 then of course it remains effectively cost free.

Once you enable the investments then you can further tweak how much money is put into your pockets and indeed into each investment you have added giving you full control on how your money is split when deposited.

Plum Feature Comparison