DIGIT....

How I pay for my travels seem to be a common topic of discussion among my friends, so I thought I would let you guys in on one of my favorite travel tricks:  DIGIT!

This is language directly from their website:  Digit is a journey aimed at refreshing the interactions between humans and their money.  Bad financial habits create unnecessary hardship that derail us from living our life to the fullest. We believe we can help people avoid some of these hardships by combining recent discoveries in behavioral psychology with technology.

How does it work?  Basically you give Digit permission to make withdrawals from your account and put it into your savings account.  It’s not a set amount of cash, it will be random amounts of cash that they “set aside” for you.  Here are some things you should know:

·    Digit will “analyze your income and spending, and find money it can safely set aside for you”.  I gotta tell you, sometimes the amounts are small but other times the amounts can be larger.  But you will always have control.  You can text them and tell them to Pause Saving, or Speed Up/Slow Down your savings.  It’s completely up to you.  Once they took over $20 out of my account a few days in a row and I was like WHOA…a quick text and that was taken care of.  Here is what my Savings Journal looked like recently:

So some of these amounts are larger than typical, but I have mine set to “save more” because I knew I was planning for something.

·    They will never overdraft your account, they “never transfers more than you can afford”.  They actually have a no-overdraft guarantee.

·        You can access your savings anytime!  A quick text message telling them how much you would like to transfer back to savings and voila, your money is back in your checking account the next business day.

So how do I use digit?  Usually I use it when planning for my longer trips.  I will allow the savings to build up and I don’t touch it – at all – for any reason; not even for a shorter trip (I use my travel account for smaller trips).   Now I’m not talking about saving for the flight.  This is the cash I use for things like excursions, train tickets/flights to other cities/countries during the trip, food or even AirBnb/hotel costs.  For instance, below was my digit balance yesterday:

 

I will transfer $700 back into my checking account next week and start booking excursions for my upcoming trip to Barcelona and Rome.  I will also use this cash for food.  This is a MUCH BETTER option (for me) than using credit cards.

And there you have it.  One EASY way to save some cash for your travels!  Now #GetGoing!

Angie, Founder
2 Girls & A Bikini