Trim Review: 5 Things To Know Before You Sign Up – Technologist

Online subscription services are having their moment. From Netflix to newspapers, 99% of U.S. households have at least one subscription service!

But according to Self, it’s estimated that 85.7% of people across the country have at least one subscription — with an average value of $32.84 — that they’re not using. That’s like throwing away nearly $400 a year!

That’s where Trim by OneMain comes in. This free service is designed to help you manage your subscriptions with minimal effort. But you need to give the company access to your bank accounts to get the job done. Before you do, I’ve put together answers to some of the top questions about Trim, including:

• What Is Trim?
• How Does Trim Work?
• Is Trim Safe?
• Alternatives To Trim
• Is Trim Worth It?

What Is Trim?

Trim is an app designed to help its users take control of their money. To do this, the budgeting tool has a primary focus on managing subscriptions. But there are several other services available to users, including:

• Budgeting
• Financial health
• Healthcare costs
• Re-shopping car insurance
• Student loan repayment
• Subscription monitoring
• Transaction monitoring

Trim previously also offered bill negotiation services to premium members. But in 2021, Trim was acquired by OneMain Financial, which calls itself, “the country’s largest installment lender to hardworking Americans with nonprime credit.” Since then, Trim’s subscription service has ended and the bill negotiation feature is only available to OneMain’s loan customers.

A mobile app of the service is also only available to OneMain loan customers, who will need to download the OneMain app to get access to the features specific to Trim.

But — while you might not be able to manage an account with Trim from an app — Trim is completely free to users! So, you can go to the Trim website from a computer or even your preferred browser on your cell phone to get started.

How Does Trim Work?

To help you manage your subscriptions and money, Trim needs to take a look at what’s going on in your bank account. So, when you sign up, you first need to share:

• Your name
• Email address
• Primary address

Then, you have to link at least one bank account for Trim to scan your transactions, identify subscriptions and assist with budgeting. If you’re skeptical about sharing your banking information, that’s good!

You should always be cautious about sharing bank account information online. I cover more about Trim’s safety below, but the company wants you to know they, “use the same security as your bank to view your subscriptions and understand your spending.” This security includes using Plaid — a third-party fintech company — to connect your bank accounts.

Once your bank account is linked, you will see your financial information fill up the different features on Trim within minutes. These features, which give you insight into your finances, include:

Subscription Monitoring

This is the service that Trim is known for offering. It allows you to identify and monitor your subscriptions. You can see a list of companies you’re paying, how much you spend each time you’re charged, and when you were last charged.

With all of your subscriptions on one page, it’s easy to glance and identify things that you no longer use. There’s a button next to each subscription that lets you edit and another button to cancel. If you see something listed that’s not truly a subscription, the edit button lets you remove it from the list. The cancel button does exactly what you expect: cancels an unwanted subscription.

Budgeting

The Budget Tracker feature says you can plan a budget in less than five minutes, but I’d say that’s a low estimate. Unlike some of the competitor apps, Trim wants you to input financial information manually to start your budget.

You need to input your income and information about monthly expenses like your rent/mortgage, utilities, groceries, and amounts spent eating out. Then Trim will help you make a budget so that you can increase your savings.

FinHealth

FinHealth is a survey that consists of eight questions, which let you check in and reflect on your financial health. The questions ask about things like your:

• Household’s total spending compared to total income
• Ability to pay bills on time
• Ability (for how long) to cover your expenses if needed, without withdrawing money from retirement accounts or borrowing
• Confidence in how you’re doing towards meeting longer-term goals
• Ability to manage your household debt
• Credit score rating
• Confidence that your insurance policies (home, auto, life, etc.) will provide enough support in case of an emergency
• Thoughts on whether your household plans ahead financially

Then, you’re asked some optional questions including what your age is and what your annual household income is. Trim says providing answers will be used to give you “more helpful next steps.”

Transaction Monitoring

You can easily set up account alerts in the transaction monitoring section of Trim. Using toggles, you can turn on or off alerts for:

• Payday
• Overdraft Fee
• Credit Card Late Fee
• Incoming Payments
• Average Credit Card Use
• Balance Update
• Large Transactions

The large transactions alert requires you to use a slider to set a monetary value on what you consider large transactions. You can choose an amount between $0 and $1,000. Then, you’ll get an alert whenever a transaction exceeding that amount occurs.

You can also use a slider to set a minimum balance alert. Like the large transactions slider, you choose an amount between $0 and $1,000. You receive an alert when your checking account balance drops below the number you selected.

Car Insurance

Trim uses Savvy to monitor your car insurance and shop around for cheaper auto insurance options.

Additional Services

In addition to the features listed above, Trim offers two unique services, which I haven’t seen on other budgeting apps.

The first is a Healthcare Cost Information Center. Healthcare is complex and can be quite costly! Trim’s Healthcare Cost Information Center has a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) regarding planning for medical care, health insurance, and medical bills. While their list of questions isn’t the most extensive, the information provided is certainly helpful.

The Student Loan Repayment Resource is Trim’s second unique offering. The resource has the most up-to-date information on federal relief. There are answers to FAQs on student loans, including things like how to lower your loans and steps toward federal student loan forgiveness.

Trim also tells you all about federal Saving on Valuable Education (SAVE) repayment plans and links you the student aid government site to apply if you’re interested.

Is Trim Safe?

When it comes to protecting your information online, Trim seems to take all the current industry-standard steps. Here are some of the ways Trim works to keep your info safe:

• Partners with Plaid to connect your bank information
• Uses 256-bit SSL encryption for data
• Hosts servers on Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Plaid is a digital finance platform that helps customers and companies share financial information. Not only is Plaid used by several budgeting apps like Trim, but it’s also by major companies such as American Express, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Venmo and more.

And AWS hosts servers for major organizations like the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA.

Additionally, before you link your bank info, Trim prompts you to set up two-factor authentication. A pop-up asks for your phone number to send a code, saying, “Protect your Trim account with two-factor authentication before connecting your bank account.”

Knowing all this might help ease your concerns, but it might not. And that’s understandable! If you want to learn more about their security, you can read Trim’s security statement here.

Alternatives To Trim

Whether Trim has you excited about exploring the world of budgeting apps or has left you looking for more, you’ve got lots of options! There are plenty of tools out there to get started with managing your finances online.

To get you started with other options, I’ve compared Trim to some of the most popular budgeting services. Here’s a quick look at how Trim compares:

Since many of the features are similar, I think it’s worth at least looking around the sites or apps of the alternatives. That way, you can compare the different interfaces. You might find one that you naturally prefer.

Trim isn’t as detailed or visually appealing as Rocket Money. But if cost is your biggest consideration, then you can’t beat free. AndTrim offers more features than ScribeUp, the other free option.

Is Trim Worth It?

I’ve looked at lots of budgeting tools in order to better understand what’s out there and how Trim compares. While, personally, Trim isn’t my favorite, it’s free! If you have a lot of subscriptions and need help managing them, the (lack of) cost alone makes it worth a few minutes of your time.

But if your subscriptions are in order, you’re looking for a quick and minimum-effort way to get on top of budgeting, and you don’t mind spending some money for that assistance, then I’d say there are better options available.

Here’s a quick list of pros and cons to consider:

To see what other users have to say, check out Trim reviews on Trustpilot. Or, since it’s free, jump right in and give it some time to decide for yourself! You can easily unlink your bank account if you decide it’s not for you.

Final Thoughts

Trim is a free budgeting service that specializes in managing your subscription services. If your primary goal is to take stock of your subscriptions and cut out any unused ones once and for all, Trim is perfect for that.

But if you’re someone who loves to take advantage of a free trial, you might want to consider ScribeUp instead. ScribeUp is also free to use, but you can sign up and manage trials directly from ScribeUp.

The post Trim Review: 5 Things To Know Before You Sign Up appeared first on Clark Howard.