Innovation That Matters

Savings tool involves friends and family to help reach goals

Work & Lifestyle

Setting interim goals is an important part of achieving any long-term aspiration, and saving is no exception. Much the way SmartyPig makes saving social, so Piggymojo helps to reinforce saving with positive feedback from the user’s friends and family. While many savings sites show users what they’ve been spending, with a focus on budgeting, Piggymojo offers a concrete way to fight fleeting temptations and reinforces such resolve with numerous sources of positive feedback. Users begin by signing up with the service and declaring a goal, including how much they want to save and by when. They also pick an image to represent their savings goal—a beach sunrise, for example. Next, they can also designate a “cheering section” of supporters to be notified of their progress. Then, when they’re out and about on their daily routine and they resist the temptation to spend, they can take out their cell phone and text piggymojo the name and dollar amount of the thing they chose not to buy. That amount then gets counted toward their declared savings goal. Savings partners like spouses also get instantly notified of such triumphs over temptation for mutual inspiration. As Piggymojo notes, “each save creates momentum.” The site tracks savings and goals weekly, with opportunities for users to post stories and for members of their cheering section to post comments. The user’s chosen image, meanwhile—which at first is shown overlaid by a black-and-white grid—gradually gets changed to a colour version to represent a goal becoming reality. Piggymojo is free to use, but currently only U.S. consumers can text their savings to the site; Canadian users must send savings through Twitter. Eventually, we’d expect to see the service hook up with banks to put more incontrovertible substance behind any reported savings. In the meantime, however, one to partner with or emulate for the rest of the savings-minded world…? (Related: Site helps businesses reward consumers for positive actionsSite matches motivation ‘buddies’ with shared goalsIn online auction, banks bid on consumer savingsBank’s free tools help clients pay down their debt.) Spotted by: Surrie Taylor

Website: www.piggymojo.com

Contact: www.piggymojo.com/index/contact