The Brief

Scrimp was born at a Startup Weekend. The gist of the app was to take what you don't spend and actually save it. In other words, Scrimp was a savings jar. Since then, the project has been put on a shelf, but not forgotten. I’m dusting off old design files to explore other financial and retail concepts and hopefully solve an age old problem for people, “I want that cool shiny new thing, but I can’t afford it!”

Ideally our users will have a tendency to save up for short to long-term retail items and experiences. New sneakers, Golf clubs, Mountain Bike, Vacations, etc.

We tried utilizing existing behavior to guide users toward their savings goals. We operated on the assumption that users will fall into one of these three categories or at least exhibit these behaviors:

1. Cheapskates: Constantly scrounging. This user type would Scrimp small amounts, but save very often.

2. Loose Change Gatherers: Cashing in loose change or what’s left over from their paycheck. Medium amounts at a steady rate.

3. Payoffers: These people may have more bills to pay and money to move around. They will scrimp larger amounts, but less often.

A Goal-Oriented Approach

Scrimp is an app aiming to help people become smarter savers. By saving toward desired products or experience, users can visualize their goal, track their progress and avoid frivolous fast food binges.

To help simplify the creation and management of Scrimp goals, we only let users save toward one goal at a time. Their primary goal will become their focus and the pre-selected Goal when they're on the Scrimp Pad.

To decrease input, users can simply add a site link to the purchase page of the product or experience they desire. Scrimp will scrape the website and pull in a title, price and image.

Incentivizing users to save with Scrimp could take various forms within the product:

1: Need a Boost?: By giving users an initial boost of $5 dollars we are hopefully nudging them toward their savings goal and encouraging repeat engagement.

2: Social Proof: To show users they’re not alone, we could incorporated a couple of user avatars from people that are saving up for the same products or experiences.

3: Scrimp Exclusive: When users have reached their Scrimp Goal, we give them to option to “Cash Out” on their goal. While they’ve been Scrimping their hearts out, we’ve been searching for deals, exclusive to the Scrimp platform, for their product or experience.

The non-engaging nature of saving money makes automation an obvious choice for effortless financial management. Products like Acorns and Simple have proven that. I can see purchase “round ups”, reoccurring deposits and auto-withdrawl from a budget or any combination of these becoming a solution for Scrimp. I decided to investigate reoccurring deposits. During the onboarding process we could ask users how much they want put in a reoccurring deposits. They can choose if they want to be a Penny Pincher, Cheapskate, Tightwad or enter a custom amount.