Hey Picky peeps! I visited family this weekend and we admittedly didn’t have many frugal tales to regale you with today. Instead, please check out this review I did for a new money app, Cinch. It’s still in beta, but you can sign up to join if it sounds groovy to you (it’s free right now!). They did compensate me to write an honest review, which means there are no ads here today! Enjoy!

What the hell is Cinch?

That was my first thought when they emailed me about a review.

I admit that, at first, I rolled my eyes. I didn’t want to check out yet another budgeting app that was just a rehashed version of You Need A Budget.

Once I dug in, though, I was pleasantly surprised.

Cinch is different from other apps because it functions as your own personal CFO. And yes, I totally thought the phrase “personal CFO” was a hyperbole, but that’s exactly what it is.

I’m all for being skeptical of Money apps, because too often they’re kinda lame. After doing a trial run with Cinch, it is quite not-lame! In fact, it’s freakin’ neat. Here’s their website if you want more info.

How it works

Here’s how the process went to start my Cinch account. It’s worth mentioning that I am lazy and impatient and tech-unsavvy. I’m 25, but have the patience of a two-year-old and tech prowess of an 80-year-old. A signup process has to be reaaaally easy for me to get on board.

Here’s how it went down.

• Cinch sent me a nifty ~early access code~.
• I followed the directions in their email to set up an account.
• It took about 5 minutes for me to enter my information. They ran a soft pull on my credit to pull my report, which means it won’t affect my credit score. I have to say at this point is when I was really impressed. I’ve used other apps that pulled my credit report, but they were riddled with wrong data or it just came across wonky. All of the data Cinch pulled was correct, which was my first indication that they weren’t full of shiz. They showed all debts in my name, the creditors, and all current balances.

• After that, I linked my bank with Cinch. This is also a sneaky trick I pull on finance apps because my bank is infamously annoying to link. It’s high-security and app developers hate working with them. In fact, I was due to review a different app and had to cancel completely because my bank refused to connect to it. My bank connected just fine to Cinch, which was another sign that they’re legit.
• Cinch then led me through an easy peasy process to link the accounts in my bank to the accounts on my credit report, which was cool.
  And this is the point where the app got really cool. While other apps, like Personal Capital, would just show my account balances in huge, intimidating graphs, Cinch asked clarifying questions first. They asked if I pay off my credit card every month, if I have other money saved aside from the money in my linked accounts, and if I have any planned expenses like upcoming vacations.
• After I entered my information, Cinch generated my personalized recommendations. They formed easy-to-read graphics on my money flow each month (money in versus money out), debt and credit, available cash, and insurance protection. I have to admit that I was kinda snooty going into this because surely I am the queen of saving! I can do no wrong! Ha. The cool thing is that this app review reminded me that we all have room to grow.
• Cinch recommended that I look into quotes for car insurance. I went through the process, but since I have a multi-car policy, that app wasn’t equipped to handle it right now. So that was disappointing. But Cinch also set me up with a spending challenge. The app noted that I’ve been spending a good chunk of money at restaurants. It challenged me to spend only a set amount of cash (groceries and takeout) for a week and report back on my progress.

The pros and cons of Cinch

I’ve been flipping through Cinch for a while and overall, I’ve been really impressed with it. Here are the pros and cons from my Cinch experience.

Cons

With every app, a little rain must fall, no? Nothing is perfect, and there are definitely a few things I’d like to see Cinch improve.

First of all, the app is still in beta. That means that the current app I’m seeing won’t be the same even a few months down the line. It’s possible that it’ll have totally new capabilities by the time it’s open to the public. While I think that’s a great thing, it’s kind of a bummer that the app I’m using now doesn’t have all the full functionality that it will have later down the line. Cinch is also currently a web app, so you can’t download it on your phone just yet.

The good thing is that Cinch is updating the app very frequently and adding updates to expand its uses. For example, I wasn’t thrilled that Cinch doesn’t do multi-car policies for car insurance. The app did mention that the functionality is coming in future updates.

But I wanna do it now! Tell me your insurance-saving secrets, Cinch.

Another con of Cinch is that it currently doesn’t focus on asset allocation or investments, which are crucial to financial independence. The rep I spoke with said this is something they’ll later add. I used to work in banking and I know things get sticky when you wade into investments and advice, so it’s no surprise to me that investments are a Coming Soon feature.

I know a lot of these cons have more to do with Cinch still being in development, which is pretty cool. I’m a Picky lady and I can usually punch holes in product marketing, but this suckah is pretty tight.

I will say that Cinch isn’t for you if you’re a fan of charts and numbers. Cinch’s philosophy is that most people don’t want to spend the mental bandwidth worrying about their money. The app is designed to analyze money for you, not compile it into a chart for you to analyze. It completely skips over the graphs and gets to the juicy stuff. But if you like apps that compile data for you to analyze yourself, Cinch isn’t for you (you might like Personal Capital better).

Pros

There are actually a lot of things that I like about Cinch.

The biggest, most BADASS thing about this app is that it doesn’t accept money from vendors. I’ve looked at other apps that suggest you switch your car insurance or cable to a certain provider to save money.

But guess what?

The apps are paid by those companies to make those suggestions. When apps accept money from vendors, they don’t have your best interests at heart. They’ll suggest Spectrum all day long for affordable cable, even if AT&T is cheaper for you, all in the name of making money.

Cinch is not into that. They don’t accept money from vendors, which means you can actually trust their recommendations. The only downside to them not accepting money is that the app will cost $4.99 a month out of beta.

But I’d say that it’s better to pay for honest advice than to get free bad advice.

I also liked the absence of crazy charts and graphs in this app. Y’all know that I am bad with numbers and math. My attention wanders the second I see anything numerical. I love that Cinch skips the money-tracking stuff and focuses on analysis and suggestions.

It’s a lot less overwhelming and they use cute graphics to explain things in lieu of boring charts.

For example, your overall financial status is shown by birds on a wire. The more birds on the wire, the more weighed down the wire becomes. These birds are representative of all the negative things in your financial life that weigh you down. As you solve more financial woes, birds fly away, leaving you increasingly weightless.

Neat, right?

Cinch analyzed my unique situation, which was a breath of freakin’ fresh air. I’m sick of apps that tell me to “save more” when I’m already saving 50%+ of my income. I assumed that I would be ~infallible~, but Cinch had some great recommendations for me to keep improving my finances.

I think Cinch would be an amazing asset to people who are just starting to get out of debt and figure out their path. However, it’s also been a great tool for someone like me, who’s already on their journey and is always looking for ways to grow.

Give it a try

I’m actually really stoked to check out Cinch as it continues to develop. They’re still in beta and they’re looking for some testers. If you’re interested, you can visit this link and enter your email for your special access code.

I think it’s really been a fun experience; Cinch is a good app that I want to keep in my financial toolbox. It’s all about kicking debt to the curb, and this is going to be a time-saving app for sure!

We want to know: What are your favorite money apps?

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