Snoop has helped Joe to get 60% further out of debt, build healthy financial habits and improve his financial well-being
I'm 24 years old, work full-time and rent a house in London. I started using Snoop on the 13th August 2020 to help me keep on top of my finances and pay down my debts. I use the app as a motivational tool to remind myself of progress I'm making and have been able to save money with Snoop by assessing my recurring bills, cutting unnecessary costs and reviewing my month-to-month spends (by category) to stay on (and under!) budget!
The features of the Snoop app I use most are: the open banking dashboard, Snoops for tips and tricks to save money and reduce expenses, the Payment Hub for assessing my recurring bills and the Your Money section for a breakdown of my spending by categories.
A positive start to 2021
Waking up and seeing your financial accounts doesn't have to be a daunting task. With Snoop I can see them all in one place, which serves as a great reminder of the progress I'm making and, I have to say, I've been feeling noticeably more optimistic about my financial outlook for 2021. After using Snoop most days in December 2020, I began 2021 using Snoop daily. I've started the year feeling confident in my finances, and prepared for the road ahead.
In December 2020, I achieved a milestone in my financial journey. I had reduced the amount of debt I was in by over 60% in just 4 months since using Snoop — and the best part — I went on to clear a further 10% of my debt in January 2021 too 🚀. It's not only (mentally) easier to breathe now, but a real achievement getting to this milestone that brings me peace of mind thinking of my finances.
Tips and tricks that are saving me money
Snoop has been rolling out some really useful tips and tricks that I've found helpful this month.
Snoop guided me through claiming tax relief for working from home (saving me over £120 in less than 10 minutes 💰), taught me more about the costs associated with buying a house (for the future! 🏡) and informed my decision to change my fuel and electricity suppliers to a green, eco-friendly alternative ♻️ (over £300~ cheaper annually too).
One step closer
I don't make new year's resolutions, though I do set 1-year, 3-year and 5-year goals and make a plan for achieving them, and with Snoop, I feel one step closer to achieving my financial goals.
From keeping on top of my income and expenses, to knowing my recurring bills better than the back of my hand, I’m one step closer to being where I want to be with my finances.
Thanks, Snoop — here's to 2021! 🥳
What's to come?
Next month I'll be doing a deeper dive into my budgeting. I'm hoping to use the Snoop app to help me maintain a lower cost of grocery shopping from cost-saving changes I've begun making this month.
Join me on this journey with Snoop in my next blog post.
See you then!
£32 saved this month on the shopping bill 🛒 and a sustainable surprise!
I set myself a target to reduce my grocery spending after using Snoop to monitor my spend for the category last month.
I tracked my transactions since, and made sure to make what I bought last! Here's how Snoop came in handy for me in Feb.
A heads-up Snoop on the latest supermarket offers
I shop for groceries at all types of stores like most people, be it supermarkets or local corner shops. As for the supermarket stores, Sainsbury's is my closest, and this month I did the majority of my grocery shopping there. As such a handy Snoop with a tonne of links for the latest savings at Sainsbury's got the thumbs up and I picked up some alternative items this month to make the most of the offer. I saved over £25 from discounted items shared in this cost-saving Snoop this month 💸
Having these types of cost-savings really adds up, especially when you go into the shop with a list knowing what you're going to get.
Nectar (points!) sure taste sweet
Snoop alerted me to a nice little bonus too — Sainsbury's ran a promo offering up to 1000 Nectar points (which can be used in-store for £1 off for every 100 points), just for opening up the Nectar app. I opened it up and got 500 Nectar points for free, so that was a welcomed £5 knocked off of my shopping bill 🍯
Unexpected sustainability
I care about sustainability, and try to do my part, from investing in purpose-driven, ethical and environmentally-friendly companies, to making more conscious everyday decisions with my wallet.
Snoop surprised me this month with the recommendation of an app called Giki Badges to review the impact of my regular grocery shopping. I watched a video online of how the app worked, and set myself a reminder to download it so I can try it out the next time I head to the shops. Now this one might not save me money upfront, but long-term it brings a positive impact — and that's important to me and my family.
Importantly, this showed me just how useful Snoop is becoming for far more than just my financial wellbeing. I look forward to more sustainability-encouraging Snoops like this, especially ones that can save me money while saving the planet 🌍
What's to come?
I haven't set myself a specific goal for next month, and that's okay — sometimes just keeping an eye on your money and looking out for ways Snoop can help you to have better peace of mind is all you need.
Who knows, next month there could be some showstopper Snoops, and I'll be on the app daily to keep an eye out for them.
Thanks for reading this month's blog post 👋
Joe's planning to get ahead of the game with Snoop
This month I didn't have a specific target in mind, but I’ve used Snoop to keep a close eye on my finances and upcoming features mean I’ve started thinking ahead!
Thinking ahead
Snoop has announced that we’ll be getting the option to create our own custom categories in the Categories area of the Your Money section of the app.
This got me thinking: could I plan out a draft of ideal custom categories to get one step ahead?
A great example is the purchase of a gift for someone—when the transaction appears in my spend breakdown for categories on Snoop I could categorise into a 'Gifts' category.
Then, at the end of the month I could review how much I've spent on gifts.
This will be a great way to cross-check my spending against my budget, and Snoop will make this even easier with me not having to scour through tonnes of transactions on my bank statements each month 💀
I’ve created a draft list so I’ll be ahead of the game once it goes live and I’m looking forward to being able to getting deeper money-saving insights and further reducing my expenses.
Sharing Snoop
I sing Snoop's praises a lot (not just in these blogs, but in real life too). The great thing here is Snoop rewards you for getting family and friends on board.
Last month I had four friends join Snoop, and I received some Amazon credit as a thank you.
It's worth calling out because not every company does this and it's warmly welcomed 😊
What's to come?
Next month I'll be diving deeper into Snoop's handy Payment Hub feature, particularly looking at my contract end dates.
I already know that my mobile contract expires and I'm interested to see how Snoop's comparison of mobile phone deals can slash my bill!
Snoop’s Payment Hub has saved Joe a packet
This month I looked into my contract end dates and took some action using Snoop's handy Payment Hub feature. The result – a massive saving of £240!
Here’s how…
2 years ago I started a contract for a mobile phone handset and SIM plan. As of this month, I’m no longer in contract and I’m no longer tied into this expensive monthly bill 😌
This bill was costing me £24.64 per month - and set to rise to £25.01 from next month. Fortunately, I had my ducks in a row with the handy help of Snoop.
Last year I logged my contract end date for this phone contract in Snoop’s Payment Hub, and Snoop alerted me that the contract was due to expire shortly. Time to look for a new deal to slash costs!
Now owning the device from my old contract, I could significantly cut the cost of this bill by going on a SIM-only plan.
In light of the pandemic, I haven’t been leaving the house very much, so I knew I didn’t need all the bells and whistles as far as data was concerned.
Thanks to Snoop’s handy tools allowing me to log my contract end date I’ve been able to keep the same phone number on a SIM-only plan, costing just £5 per month (£20~ less per month), saving over £240 per year!
I also used Snoop’s powerful Payment Hub feature to analyse my previous 3-month rolling average spend for a few of my variable bills and realigned my budget to reflect these up-to-date figures.
Thanks to this I have a little bit extra accounted for to put towards my discretionary spend at the end of the month.
And when I say ‘discretionary spend’, I really mean getting a tub of ice cream with the shopping 🍦 — after all, everyone deserves a treat!
This month I'll be exploring my monthly spend in May using Snoop's useful Your Money feature, specifically exploring the Categories area.
This insight will help adjust my monthly budget to put even more money towards clearing debts.
Joe is on a debt-free journey and has hit another financial milestone
I started to use Snoop in August 2020, and saw the potential in the first few weeks of using the app.
I even became an investor in the company’s first equity crowdfunding round. I liked the proposition that much, and I’m really proud to be a part of the company’s journey.
In the past 9 months with the help of Snoop, I’m the most debt-free I have been in years.
Thanks for helping me get one step closer to my financial goals, Snoop!
£8 cashback for regular purchases 🛍️
Snoop brought an innovative app to mind for me this month.
With Airtime Rewards I’ve earned £8 in May just for spending in the normal way.
I’d love to see exclusive enhanced cashback rates at retailers (or even exclusive promo codes) for Snoop users (partnerships at Airtime Rewards, please reach out to Snoop 👀).
Cost-saving calculations 📊
This month I delved deeper into Snoop's useful Your Money feature, specifically exploring the Categories area.
I wanted to refine my understanding of what I was actually spending instead of what I thought I was spending month-to-month.
I knew I could use Snoop to reflect the actual amounts I spent against my budget with my spending helpfully mapped against categories over time.
I worked out that I had budgeted 26% more than I needed to for what I was actually spending in the Eating Out category in the Snoop app on average per month.
Having this insight with Snoop meant I could start to put my money to better use, continuing to clear debt and do it faster. This month thanks to Snoop, I’ve been able to do just that!
Each incremental gain is a step in the right direction, and this is an example of one of those hidden savings Snoop can bring that helps you cut your costs over time, leaving more money for what matters most.
Joe reckons Snoop’s 4.0 beta is making Snoop better 💪
Joe's reaping the benefits of Snoop 4.0 ⚡
This month Snoop announced a beta for a new version, Snoop 4.0—an updated experience for the Snoop app.
Snoop invited me to test the new version out, and there's good news… Snoop's becoming more efficient, easier to use and smarter!
Benchmarking my spending 🏋️♂️
Snoop shared some interesting stats on how much I spent compared to the average spend of other users at different businesses this month.
Insightful to read, I came away with a feel-good feeling to see a relative snapshot of my spending—even for where I spent more than the average with some businesses.
Simply having that insight helped me limit my spending this month where necessary.
Slashing the time spent on admin for repayments ⚔️
Snoop 4.0 (helpfully) redesigned the home screen of the Snoop app.
A new row appears at the top of the app allowing you to scroll left and right to see all of your accounts, making it easier than ever to see the balance of them all at-a-glance.
At first I was sceptical (from being so familiar with the old design), though after using it daily, I've found it even more effective—especially when it comes to making payments against debts.
I usually switch between Snoop and provider apps when I need to make a payment. I'd use Snoop to see quickly how much I could afford to pay for each account.
I'd then check the provider's app and ensure I'm paying at least the minimum payment requested, then I'd switch back to Snoop to rinse and repeat this process to make all my payments.
I didn't time myself doing this, though for this admin task, I'd roughly estimate that I completed this in circa half of the time it took me previously. A noticeable difference that I'm thankful for 🕑
Joe can see clearly now, soon his debt will be gone
Snoop's latest update has given me the tools I need to really dig into my financial data and push me further to better utilise some more of the app's handy features.
Hitting the 'View your spend analysis' button on the Snoop home screen, I saw some major improvements to the way my spending is visualised.
Tracking month-to-month costs may not be the most fun task, yet it's easier than ever to do with Snoop.
There's a handy line graph that shows the total amount spent in one month compared to the previous month, keeping me on-budget and accountable to my spending limits.
One extra feature I find incredibly useful (that this month came especially in handy) is seeing the monthly cost change for each category under the line graph.
For example, this month I saw there was a small decrease in the amount I spent in the month of July in the Shopping category, letting me know that I had a little more money left over.
I noted the amount I had left over from this category, double-checked my budget and then used that money to pay extra towards clearing debt.
Thanks to Snoop I could easily find these numbers at a glance–no paper-printing or highlighting bank statements in sight!
I’ve often used Snoop to filter by categories, though I have underutilised the ability to filter by merchants.
This is useful to see a breakdown of multiple purchases made at any one given company throughout the month.
For example, if I made two purchases at Amazon for £10 each in July, Snoop would show me that I had spent £20 at Amazon throughout the month.
This helped me with larger figures and balancing out how much needed to be accounted for with merchants that I hadn't yet processed a transaction with, but that I knew were coming up - especially for supermarket retailers!
Joe fully utilised Snoop's artificial intelligence tagging features
I found this month to be one of the most efficient in using Snoop yet. Here's how…
In the past month I've fine-tuned the categorisation of my regular transactions.
This meant doing some heavy lifting, going through my transactions and telling Snoop which category to select for different businesses I spent money with in the past.
Snoop's artificial intelligence can then work its magic and help me gain richer insights for future months' reporting on my finances—especially with businesses that I make regular transactions with.
When I edited these transactions, Snoop offered an option to automatically tag future transactions that Snoop identified as similar with the same category.
I had this set-up on some transactions before this month, though I didn't optimise all of my transactions—and in doing this throughout the month, I've already seen a difference.
Even in using Snoop less than I usually do this month, I've gained more value from the precision of my reporting in the app.
In particular, this helped with the month-to-month spends per category, and I could easily within less than 15 minutes see how much I under or overspent for each.
Clearing up these transactions' categories and fully utilising Snoop's automated tagging, I can now see a simple month-to-month change to my spending for each of my categories with pinpoint accuracy—taking out all of the guesswork.
It's well worth doing this exercise on your own Snoop app. Why not try out the automated category tagging feature and see if it can help your budgeting?
Saving £120 a year was music to my ears
Using Snoop’s handy Payment Hub feature, I noticed the payment made for my music streaming provider increased significantly.
As such I cancelled my existing subscription and went looking for a cheaper option with the help of Snoop.
Snoop suggested taking up a 3-month free trial to an alternative provider, Apple Music.
I took up the Apple Music trial and, after a few weeks of use, I decided that I’ll be going onto a paid subscription after the 3-month free trial.
Saving over £10 per month using Apple Music means I’m spending £120 less per year on a music streaming service 💰.
I’m no audiophile, yet I’ve noticed little-to-no difference in terms of sound quality moving to Apple Music.
The user experience in the app is similar to my previous music streaming provider too.
I’m happy with the switch and glad I spotted the rising cost from my old provider thanks to Snoop.
To not be forgoing an easy-to-use app and high-quality audio (and still making a significant cost saving) is brilliant!
Snoop continues to take my budgeting to the next level
It’s only recently I really started to use Snoop's handy Spend Analysis feature.
Understanding my monthly spends before making use of the feature in Snoop was such a hassle to log and used to take a millennium to sift through. I even used to take photos of physical receipts and manually log how much I spent in different categories to try and stay on-budget!
A few months ago I made sure to consistently tag all of my transactions in Snoop by their right category - so that the Spend Analysis feature could accurately identify how much I spent in different categories - to help draw better insights on my month-to-month spending.
This month I've been so impressed with the insights of the feature in Snoop that I've decided to scrap the old receipt photoshoots—freeing up far more time from life admin and getting an easy at-a-glance snapshot with Snoop.
This is a major win for me and has freed up lots of time. After 15 minutes tagging my transactions in the Spend Analysis feature in Snoop every month, I get clearer insights and I can actually understand where I'm under and over budget. Where time is money, Snoop has helped get a few hours of my life back!
Super service from the Snoop team
Just a small thing this month but one of the merchants in my feed didn’t have a picture so I got in touch with the team. They understood how important the image is for quickly visualising and identifying spending and fixed it in a flash! Great service from the Snoop team!
Snoop told me my supplier went bust (when the supplier didn’t!)
This month I received a super useful Snoop alerting me that my energy supplier had gone into administration. It was useful because I never received any info about the closure from my actual supplier! So if it wasn’t for Snoop I would have only found this out when my supply was taken over by an appointed company on behalf of the UK’s energy regulator, Ofgem.
Ofgem’s guidance when an old supplier goes bust is to not change your supplier until an initial switch is made (to lessen administrative difficulties). I couldn’t use Snoop to switch away from my newly appointed supplier right away, though as soon as this has completed I’ll be using Snoop’s useful Energy Checker feature to (hopefully) find a cheaper and greener deal than my new plan.
Snoop kept Black Friday blues at bay
I have to say, Snoop shared some great alerts on how to help claw some money back during this years’ Black Friday sales. (Receiving up to 6x the amount of cashback on eBay via TopCashBack was a real treat 💰. And of course this was money I would have already spent on gifts so a major win!
With Snoop I feel like I’ve got the right financial toolkit to support my desire to cut back around this time of year and found it easier than ever. If anything, checking on new Snoop alerts felt rewarding. In my view the key to success here is to stay in control and not overspend on what you haven’t already budgeted to buy.
Why not try and see if using Snoop for your Christmas gifting can help you save money?
Keeping a wrap on Christmas spending and a year in review
Staying under budget buying gifts at Christmas 🎁
Snoop's handy Spend Analysis feature came in good use this Christmas.
I used a custom category to track gift purchases. This helped me stay under budget and easily see how much there was left to spend throughout the month.
Christmas is, of course, about more than budgets and I’m no festive Grinch. For me it was just about keeping myself accountable in sticking to a budget and it made gift giving far less stressful!
2021 end of year spending review 📱
Snoop shared a really interesting end of year review Snoop (think Spotify Wrapped in financial wellness form).
The update showed a breakdown of my spending across the whole of 2021 and highlighted: my most expensive day, my least expensive day, the places (merchants/retailers) I spent the most at and my biggest categories (by spend).
I found this really interesting and it really showcased the efforts of good habits I worked hard to build across the year.
The places I spent the most at were mostly tied to paying off debt (which was nice to see).
The categories I spent the most in were shopping and groceries. I was glad to see entertainment was one of my lowest spending categories.
I also had over 100 no-spend days where I spent absolutely nothing.
I'm very pleased with my progress this year in clearing debt and continuing to improve my financial health.
A massive thank you to Snoop for this past year's help. Here's to a great 2022!