Subscribe
Sign in
Sweep — Automatically save for your goals with bank to bank transfer
20
Replies
Eric Fader
Curious since some banks offer effectively zero interest what is the motivation for someone to keep money in the bank?
Share
@efader There are a lot of great banks out there giving 1%, but you're right, we're in a historically low interest rate period for banks. Some people are generally more risk or loss averse, and 1% savings accounts are still better than the risk of a negative return from stocks or bonds (it may be hard to see that after such a long bull market run).
On a more universal note, emergency funds should really always be kept in a liquid, FDIC-insured savings account. That means 3-6 months of living expenses in a savings account. Even at 0% interest rate, the benefit of having access to funds for an emergency far outweigh the opportunity cost than a possible investment would yield.
Congrats @asibehar and team! Just starting playing with the app but so far it looks awesome. Any plans for joint account support so I can share goals/activity with my spouse?
@markquezada Thanks Mark!
We've certainly put a lot of thought into couples finances (and it's deceptively complicated to get just right)... but with the ability to transfer money across accounts, we want to be extra cautious and thoughtful about just how we allow for that sort of experience. No plans in the short term, but it's an exciting challenge to tackle one day!
Way to mash up IPP's account access with Dwolla's ACH! Is there automation in place for some of the transfers? To fund a bucket or a credit card payoff goal, for example.
@borisism Thanks!
We've always felt pretty strongly that automation has tremendous potential to really help people get ahead, but much of the automation available today comes with potential downsides.
For example, you can set a recurring transfer from your checking to savings account every month, but you need to make sure you don't overdraft or need that money for an upcoming bill. You can automate bill payments, but then you can easily miss bill increases (looking at you Comcast!) or not have enough in your account to cover them.
Using Intuit's API and Dwolla's ACH capabilities, we wanted to give you both the automation and intelligence to help you truly save. So not only can you set money aside whenever you get paid, but Sweep can make sure your paycheck actually hit before doing so. Sweep can also let you know if a savings goal would put an upcoming bill at risk. That's all, of course, just the beginning :)
Would love to hear what you think! I'm guessing you've spent a lot of time thinking about these sorts of things with wallet.ai as well.
Awesome to see the Sweep product continue to evolve! Really love the new automated transfer functionality. Does the app notify me when I'm running low on my safe balance for the month so I can immediately stop recklessly spending when that happens?
@parthbhakta Thanks Parth. We don't have many notifications built into the app yet and we need more! We want to alert you before you run into trouble and show you the progress you're making towards your goals.
@parthbhakta To Jackson's point above, we're planning on doing a much better job around push notifications and notifications in general, but Sweep will warn if you might be short for an upcoming bill or a credit card statement.
We don't take a strong stance on 'reckless' spending :), but one of our design goals was to help make sure that you can keep what you save. We want to avoid that terrible feeling when you have to dip into your vacation funds for a splurge night out with friends. With all of your expenses and savings goals automatically being saved for, hopefully it's clearer than ever what you can safely spend without affecting those goals and upcoming expenses.
@hypecraft Thanks! That's great to hear :).
Is there any one feature you couldn't live without? Anything else you'd love to see?
Excited to see Sweep on ProductHunt!
I worked with @asibehar and @jacksongates at Pandora and have been using Sweep for the past few months. The most recent update added the ability to transfer money across my accounts, so it’s been easier than ever to save up for things while still keeping money in the checking and savings accounts I had already set up.
Excited to see where they go from here!
@tyoguritno Thanks Tyo!
Aside from being one of my favorite people I've ever been fortunate enough to work with, those early conversations on how you thought about savings and the sorts of things you wanted to save for were incredibly helpful.
Thanks for always being so awesome!
Awesome to see Sweep here! Been using the beta for a while now and I love it. @jacksongates @asibehar - How'd you come up with the idea to build it?
@pdavison Thanks! We wanted to help people manage forward cash flow because it's a huge problem and lumpy expenses are really tough. The goal is to help you plan for everything you need and then automatically save for those things using buckets.
Thanks @pdavison!
We each have some stories on how we've individually experienced some of the pain and frustration that finances play in peoples' every day lives, but I'll share a more positive, personal story.
I've always been a great saver. I worked and saved throughout high school, college and immediately afterwards. That first year out of college in 2000-2001, I was working every single day at an early-stage tech company and absolutely loved every minute of it.
I was laid off in the dot-com crash, but I had enough reserves to take some time off... so some time off I did take!
I took a total of three years off, mostly traveling and learning languages with friends (the 6 months in Rome learning Italian is still one of my fondest memories). I continue to cherish the experiences and the friendships made during that time and it was all fueled by earlier savings.
Whether you're saving up for an emergency fund, an extended vacation, or a big upcoming expense, I'm excited about giving people that same sort of confidence and freedom that helped me out years ago.
Hello Product Hunt!
I’m CEO and co-founder of Sweep. We built Sweep to help you get ahead of your bills, expenses and savings goals so you never have to budget again.
We found that traditional budgeting apps like Mint don’t work because they are backwards looking and focused on categories of spending that break down from one month to the next.
In contrast, Sweep is completely forward looking and uses a bucket metaphor to help you organize your funds. These buckets sit on top of your bank accounts so you don’t need to open a new account and we support over 20K US financial institutions.
And with our new Dwolla partnership you can set up bank-to-bank transfers to automatically achieve your savings goals without co-mingling funds. For example, you can create an emergency fund bucket on top of your credit union and transfer money each payday from your main checking account.
Some of the most popular buckets include vacations, emergency funds, healthcare, housing, car repairs and weddings.
Happy to answer questions!
And thanks @siwicadilly for hunting us. Very nice to meet you!
@ispekhov @jacksongates Unfortunately, as much as we'd love to be able to get our Canadian friends on Sweep, we have some technological and legal constraints keeping us restricted to the US for the time being.