Savology Review: Build your FREE financial plan — The Little Dollar

Savology is a free online financial planning software you can login to and access a personalized financial plan, gathering your financial profile and offering you actionable steps to help you improve your finances for the road ahead.

Savology is a Fintech startup based out of Utah and was founded by Spencer Barclay in 2019. The company is a privately held financial services firm, providing free financial services (planning) along with content based around financial planning and financial literacy.

The service works by creating an accessible, affordable and actionable financial plan for their consumers, a product that seemed to be once unreachable for those in lower income situations is now a free service to all those with simple internet access!

Regardless of your current financial status, Savology gives you insights on debt, saving, insurance products, retirement projections, and estate planning as well. One of the best parts is that it’s super easy to get started; You start off by taking a simple survey that takes around 5 minutes to finish (if you’re not distracted) and once you’ve finished it, you’ll gain access to your FREE financial plan. This will provide you with actionable steps to improve your financial success and reach financial security.

One of the things that stood out to me even more about Savology, is that the company has relationships with many of the top network providers within the financial services field. All companies that are loved by even me here at The Little Dollar.

So, when I discovered Savology I signed up after having some of my initial doubts. Every service is Free, until they upcharge you. But not Savology. I got my financial plan for free

While I am a financially savvy guy, of course running a personal finance blog, I was impressed with some of the initial steps — even if they are some of the initial actions steps I came up with myself. Regardless, it’s good to know the approach to their financial planning tool.

Having timed myself, it took me almost exactly 5 minutes to input my numbers and gain access to my financial plan. Savology then gave me the tools and actionable steps to work towards my goals as well.

While Savology provides free financial planning, the company also needs to make money. So here is a burning question you might be asking… If Savology is FREE, how do they make money? Are there annoying ads I have to watch? I hate ads too… Keep reading to find out how Savology makes money in order to provide financial planning for free.

I’m happy to report that there aren’t any annoying ads you have to worry about! S avolog y helps you identify and connects you with some of the best service providers to complete the actionable steps on your list. For example, let’s say one of my Action Items is to rebuild my emergency fund. Savology will recommend that I pursue a high-yield savings account to start building up my emergency fund. This is something that What I liked best were that all of the recommendations and action items provided by Savology, aligned with Savology may receive compensation for, depending on the actions I end up taking. everything I would have recommended to myself.

Now, there is no worries here either, Savology will only recommend you quality financial services that are beneficial to you and your financial future. I particularly like this model because this is the same way The Little Dollar chooses to make their money. We discover products that will help you reach the financial goals that you come to the site to learn about, while most of these products are simply just ones that I use and love, some are both products I use and love and also affiliate with to compensate me for my time.

We all need to put food on the table and pay the cell phone bill, right?

This may be a question you have been pondering since I posted about the ultimate financial planning guide. A post I put out back in May of 2019

To put it simply a financial plan is a set of goals and actionable tasks to reach those goals tailored specifically to your financial situation. If you are behind on an emergency fund you can have a goal where you will be saving up your fund in a separate high yield savings account as to gain interest on your stagnant money.

The best way to build your financial plan is to start by evaluating your current financial situation. And setting your goals based on the information you have.

This can be something like I saw where I made 22k and have 1k in savings, I can’t say I am going to put another 10k away next year if my income stays the same.

When setting up your financial plan, it is best to build out long term goals, such as planning for your retirement, as well goals focused on everything within the next 5 years. This helps when you are looking to stretch out your financial situation for a long-term vision.

Their business model is setup to connect quality service providers to you, the user. They get paid to offer you quality financial products that help you take action on your plan. But only if and when you decide to take action and follow through with these services — it’s also important to note that Savology does not always get paid by all of the providers, and that all of the recommendations made are without bias and purely in the best interest of helping you reach financial success through financial planning.

You can gain value from Savology by utilizing their financial plans and getting the steps you need to create your financial future.

Savology also gamifies their financial planning platform by offering what they call ‘Savology credits’. Credits are earned, not paid for, and will gain you access to unlocking new platform features, and can even help you gain discounts, saving you more time and money, on some of the partner providers. One of the easy ways you can gain Savology credits, is by sharing the service with your friends and family. Something that can easily be done in a few seconds.

The partners/providers that Savology may recommend and connect you with are actionable and beneficial for both your current and future financial standing. Again, using the example of Savology’s recommendation for myself about building an emergency fund, if you have been reading my net worth posts recently you may already know that I am currently in the process of building my emergency fund once again to allow myself to have a financial buffer once again.

• Ally Bank can offer you a good high yield savings service
• Credit Karma Savings is another good alternative solution
• Savology also partners with PolicyGenius to gain access to quality insurance policies
• Other products you can be partnered with include: Credible, Ladder and Betterment

Let’s say I need a life insurance policy, or quote, but I’m not quite sure where to get one. Well now, by having built my financial plan with Savology, I will gain immediate access to knowing what type of insurance policy I need, who some of the top providers are for this particular policy, and how I can get started. By doing so, Savology helps you not only save time, but also money by making these introductions immediately for you directly through the platform. All recommendations align with your financial plan and the action items mapped out in order to help you improve your finances and keep working towards financial security. Something that becomes fun, educational, and motivating to keep improving your finances!

You can get started and build your free financial plan by using our link here. We are partnering with Savology as a way to help our readers reach their financial goals.

By getting started you will need to use the following information to build your plan: Your first name, age, zip code and if you are married, as this will help Savology gain a basic understanding of your current life situation. While this information seems simple, it’s quite necessary — If you are 50 years old your financial goals are likely going to be fundamentally different than if you’re 25. Similarly, if you’re married or have children, your financial priorities will be different than if you are single without any dependents.

The following sections will require you to put in basic information that focuses on your income and savings, risk management, and your retirement outlook. All of the above, of course, will only take around 5 minutes or so depending on how quickly you input your information.

Once you’ve finished completing the financial questionnaire, you will then gain access to your plan where you will see 3 fundamental areas: Your action items, your report card and your financial plan.

• Action items, These are created to help you take actionable steps to begin reaching your goals, such as opening a high yield savings account for your emergency fund.
• Your report card,This offers you a scoring system to each major section of your current financial situation like; debt, retirement, insurance, savings, estate planning and income. This also offers you an expanded view of why you received a particular grade and what you can do to improve your score in each one of the areas.
• Financial Plan,This will offer you a summary of your sections, a target you need to reach to achieve your goals, as well as detailed advice on how to upgrade your savings, retirement and net worth.

As all my product reviews will have, I offer a financial recommendation. Usually this recommendation is based on who the product is best suited for, who it isn’t for, and how you can get started and sign up.

With Savology, however, this recommendation will be a bit different compared to the other ones.

This product is best suited for anyone and everyone, regardless of your current financial situation, as the product is completely FREE to use. You can see your financial plan and gain actionable steps from every angle, ideal for any age group.

The user experience of the site is phenomenal. I have dug into a fair number of financial sites and products and this is one of my favorite sites to be on. The colors and easy buttons on the site make it easy to navigate, see your action tips, explore additional features, and just keep getting familiar with the platform.

The action tips, report card and financial plan sections guide you through bite sized information that isn’t overloading and gives you the necessary steps towards your financial future.

Personally, I was not even looking for this product, but when I was happy after finding out about it. The ease of use, information, and utility of this service made me feel like I found the best choice for my financial plan. I even threw away my paper financial plan I wrote out for myself 6 months ago.

If you would like to sign up with the FREE service on Savology, consider using our affiliate link. www.savology.com/littledollar

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Originally published at https://thelittledollar.com on January 29, 2020.