Plum App Review – Helping You To Save And Invest

Do you find it a struggle to put money away every month? What if there was a way to save money automatically in such small amounts that you would hardly notice? Take a look at this Plum app review to see if it really is worthwhile and the added benefits to consider.

10-second Plum review

An app with lots of options to help you start putting some extra money away. You can also make your money work harder with investments, or there’s a savings account on offer. The cutting bills section isn’t much help, but I can overlook that.

Plum

Let’s be honest, for the majority of us, saving money can be tough. We often start with good intentions, but by the end of the month, your account is hovering around the 0 mark. You think that you’ll give it a try the following month only for the same thing to happen.

It’s quite scary when you think that over 25% of UK adults have no savings at all. What do you do if you have an unexpected bill? Or the worst case scenario… how long could you stay in your house if you were to lose your job?

This is why it’s so important to have some money saved away. Retirement may be 30 or 40 years away, but you never know what’s around the corner.

Start saving

Don’t think that you suddenly have to put £100’s into an account straight away and give-up eating for several months. One great trick to start your saving is by doing it in small amounts.

A couple of pounds here and there every week is something you will probably not notice. And within a couple of months, you’ll soon have a nice little sum growing. This is what Plum is all about.

What is Plum?

Plum is run by a Plum Fintech Limited and is based in London and has been operating since 2016.

Taken from their website:

Our mission is to help people save money without even lifting a finger.

We’ve always hated saving money, but we wanted to change that. We decided to make Plum so that there would be an easier way to save money to spend on things we want, rather than the things we need.

How does the app work?

Plum is a free app for both Apple and Android users. All you need to do to get started is to visit the Plum website and download. From there you will need to fill out some personal details and then connect your bank account and you’re ready to start saving.

Plum analyses the money going in and out of your account to determine how much you can afford to save. And don’t worry, it guarantees that you will never go into your overdraft when money is transferred from your current account to Plum. However, if that did happen, they promise to refund any fees.

With a click of a button (or a push of a finger) you can tell Plum whether you want to increase or decrease the amount you’re willing to save. You have a choice of modes:

• Beast Mode – 75% more savings
• Ambitious – 50% more savings
• Eager – around 25% more
• Normal
• Chilled – around 25% less
• Shy – 50% less in savings

And if you want to take a break completely, you can turn off autosaves for a set period.

Another option to help you save is by turning on Round-ups. With this option activated, it means that every time you make a purchase from your current account, the app will round this amount up to the nearest pound which is then transferred to your Plum account.

For example, spend £2.40 on a coffee and 60 pence will be sent to Plum.

Or, you can arrange for money to be transferred on payday. Just let Plum know when that is, how much you get paid and Plum can calculate how much you can afford to transfer over.

There are two further options available with the Plum Pro – Rainy Days and the 52-Week Challenge. More on those below.

Finally, there is a splitter option when money is saved by Plum. It can be a pain when you have different pockets and investments, so instead, you can tell the app how you want your savings to be split and it is all done automatically. For example, if Plum takes £15 one week, £7.50 can be placed into your Tech Giants investment and the other £7.50 straight into your Plum account.

In just under 1 year, having Plum linked to my current account helped me put away over £1000. Something that I could never have done without it!

Plum also provides some handy insights about your current account. You can get summaries for how much you have spent over the last week, month or by category.

How much does it cost?

Using the basic savings functions with Plum is absolutely free.

But there are 2 chargeable features – Plum Pro and Plum Plus. More on these below.

Is the Plum app safe?

Plum uses quite a few features to make sure that your data is safe.

• They never store (or have access to) your bank login details
• They only have read-only access to transaction data so in the unlikely event of a breach no money can be transferred out of your bank account
• They use symmetric cryptography (AES) to store any sensitive data
• They use state-of-the-art password algorithms
• They use 256-bit TLS encryption to communicate between the browser and their servers
• We are a registered data controller and always act in compliance with the Data Protection Act
• Their servers run on Amazon’s cloud, trusted by some of the biggest financial institutions in the world

But how about your money?

Money moved into your Plum account is held as e-Money with Barclays bank. The money is safeguarded and cannot be lent out (which is why it doesn’t earn interest). However, because this money is ring-fenced, if Plum or Barclays should go bankrupt, their creditors cannot claim your money.

Plum and PayrNet are both regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)

If your money is moved into the Plum Easy Access account, it is protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS). That means that if anything should happen to the account, your money is covered by up to £85,000 from the UK government.

If you opt for an investment, your money buys a share of a fund, which is safeguarded by a regulated custodian whose job it is to keep your shares safe. These custodians are also covered by the FSCS.

Which banks does Plum work with?

Unfortunately, Plum won’t work with every bank, but most of the big players are available. However, this is for personal bank accounts only and doesn’t cover joint accounts and business accounts.

Supported accounts are:

• NatWest
• RBS
• Santander
• HSBC
• M&S
• Lloyds
• Barclays
• First Direct
• Halifax
• Nationwide
• TSB
• Bank of Scotland
• Ulster Bank
• Post Office Bank
• Monzo
• Starling
• Danske Bank

Plum investment review

The main Plum account offers nothing in the way of interest. This is fine if you are only saving for short stints and plan to withdraw the cash after a month or so. However, if you’re there for the longer-term, there are a couple of ways to get a return for your cash.

Plum Easy Access Account

If you pay for the Plum Pro, you can open an Easy Access Account. Interest is calculated daily and added every month. To withdraw, you will need to give notice of 1 working day. Currently (October 2020), the interest rate is 0.6%, which is quite competitive compared to major banks.

Investing (Plum Plus)

But if you want your money to work a little harder for you, Plum offers you the chance to invest in stocks and bonds through Plum Plus. There are several funds in which you can invest, all offering different rates of return in the region of 1-30%. This is pretty impressive when you think of the interest you would get if you placed the money into a cash ISA.

Plum doesn’t invest the money themselves but uses Vanguard investment funds which are an investment manager with more than $5.1 trillion worth of funds.

The money you invest doesn’t just go into one company as that can be incredibly risky. Instead, the money goes into multiple companies and assets in an attempt to spread this risk.

However, as with any kind of investment of this type, these returns aren’t guaranteed and there is a chance you could lose your investment. Generally, the bigger the return, the higher the risk.

Investment funds on offer

As you can see, there is quite a range of returns across the different investment opportunities. But even investing in the poorest performing fund (Rising Stars), will still earn you more compared to almost all high-street savings accounts.

Is it worth investing with Plum?

I am not a Financial Advisor, so I can’t give you any advice. However, I have invested and seen better returns than I would from an ISA. My dad always told me not to invest more than I can afford to lose, so this is the mentality I have adopted with Plum.

I have managed to save over £1400 without noticing the money missing from my current account and made returns of £591.92

In % terms, that’s just over 40% return on my investment. But don’t expect returns to regularly be that good. This has been the top-performing fund by far and has performed well because of Covid.

There are a couple of negatives you need to be aware of though.

The drawback to investing with Plum is that it’s not free. There is a charge of £1 per month for investing, a 0.15% fee on the value of your fund investments and a fund-specific management charge of up to 0.9%.

You see, Plum pass on the fees to you that Vanguard charge for managing your money, plus they add their own. You will get better value for your money if you invested directly with Vanguard.

Because of the money Plum charges, you don’t want to just put £10 in and leave it, as the fees will always outweigh the possible gains. Because of this, you need to make sure you’re investing a decent amount each month.

The investing process is a little slow too. It usually takes around 4-5 days for your money to leave your current account and reach Plum. And if you decide to invest, it usually takes another 4 days for the money to leave Plum savings and enter your investment account.

Plum has promised to speed this process up, so fingers crossed they won’t take too long.

Plum Rewards

Another feature of Plum is ‘Rewards’. Here, you can earn cashback, simply by clicking on a link before you shop at your favourite store. After a couple of weeks, the cashback is paid straight into your account. Some of the stores included are:

• Argos 3%
• ASOS 1.20% – 4.80%
• Dominos 1%
• eBay 1.00%
• Groupon 8.25%
• Nike 4%
• Wickes 1.50%

You will find most of these stores on other cashback sites. But Plum offers competitive rates and Argos isn’t listed on some of the top sites like TopCashback and Quidco.

Lost Money

This section suggests ideas on how you can save money by changing suppliers or finding new financial providers. This includes:

• Energy supply
• Personal loans
• Broadband
• Travel insurance
• Car insurance
• Credit cards

But after looking through this section, there is nothing here that a price comparison site can’t tell you. In fact, I would recommend going through several comparison sites as it’s not clear whether Plum solely links to companies that give them a referral… meaning you might not be getting the best deal.

What is Plum Pro?

If you fancy getting a bit more from the app, you can try out Pro.

Plum Pro offers several more benefits over the free version:

Rainy Days savings – Plum is probably the first company to take this saying literally. Every time it rains, Plum will set money aside for you.

52-Week Challenge – the first week, you will save £1 with Plum and this will increase by a further £1 every following week. Keep this up and in one year, you could save £1,378.

True Balance – giving you spending limits so you don’t overspend before pay day.

Goals – set yourself a target amount.

Diagnostic reports – allows you to compare yourself with other Plum users in a similar position.

Pockets – separates money into different savings pots

Exclusive deposit rules – allows you to create different saving rules.

How much does Pro cost?

Currently, Plum Pro membership (October 2020) costs £2.99 per month. However, you can trial Pro for 30 days for free.

Is Plum Pro worth it?

If you want to keep a much closer eye on your finances, then Pro could be a good option for you. The extra saving options may also appeal to some too. However, I’m not really sure the £2.99 is really worth it.

What other people say

Plum has over 8000 reviews on Trustpilot and scores 4.3 stars out of 5 and is rated as ‘excellent’. Some of the positive reviewers state:

Saving without even noticing

Brilliant app for saving money

A real gamachanger in saving

Whereas, some of the negative reviewers say:

Longest reply time’s ever!!!!!

Very poor service, not transparent

Inefficient process/functionality behind fancy App

Problems with the app

There is an issue I have found with Plum. The link between your bank account and the app can be temperamental. TSB and Barclays seem to provide the biggest problems, but recently my Santander account lost all contact.

I would like to blame the banks, but I have never had problems with other apps such as Chip and Tandem. However, over the last 12 months, my connections have become quite stable.

My Plum app review conclusion

Plum really is an excellent method to use if you struggle to save and very easy to use. This is a great way for novice investors to get started… even though you can find better value elsewhere.

And it’s certainly worth signing up for, even if you don’t want to invest.

There’s even an active Facebook page for investors and savers to discuss all things Plum. And if you manage to refer 3 friends to sign-up to Plum and you can earn yourself £15.

Click the sign-up button below to find out more. It’s free to join, so you have nothing to lose!

If my Plum review hasn’t convinced you, why not take a look at the best personal finance and savings apps.

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Please note that this post contains an affiliate link to Plum. All views are my own.