Plugging the leaky money bucket.

Even with the best will in the world, I sometimes feel that personal finances can be like a sieve or a leaky bucket.

Money comes in every month…and then it trickles away. It happens almost without noticing.

I’m talking about those little APs and subscriptions we set up and then forget about. $5 here, $20 there. Each one hardly seems worth noticing, but they

quickly add up.

Of course, you could review every little payment but who has the time for that? It feels like a lot of drudgery to save a little money.

Worse – the companies that are milking you every month often make it hard to find the webpage that lets you unsubscribe.

Click. Cancel.

Now imagine if there was an easy way to review and then delete these small regular payments. You could save a lot of money over a year. That’s money that could go towards your mortgage, knocking down debts, building up your KiwiSaver, or even fun stuff like a holiday.

That’s why I’m thrilled to share an app I recently discovered. It’s called SortMe, and I think it’s a game changer.

SortMe is a personal finance management tool designed to simplify personal and household bills and transactions, enabling users to seamlessly manage their finances without tedious monthly spreadsheets.

It has tools to automatically track the money coming in and going out, so you can quickly figure out the state of your budget without a lot of grunt work. It’s a bit like Xero but for individuals, not businesses.

Here's the really clever bit.

You can get the app to show all your recurring subscriptions, Automatic Payments and Direct Debits from your bank accounts and credit cards. From micropayments to streaming services and regular charity donations – you’ll see them all in one screen.

You’ll spot where your money is trickling away each month. Suddenly that Sky subscription you haven’t thought about since the rugby season seems like an avoidable waste of money.

Imagine if you could easily spot $60 dollars of monthly recurring subscriptions and cancel them. Over the year, you’d save $720. Over five years you’d save a whopping $3,600. We’re sure you could find a better use for that money.

And here’s the bit I really love: There’s a prompt beside each one – do you still use this? If you decide to get rid of it, simply tap on the item and the SortMe app will take you to the page on the service’s website that shows you how to cancel it.

This completely removes any friction from the process of tidying up your finances.

Click. Cancel. Less money going from your bank account every month.

Plus easy tracking of receipts.

SortMe also has a super-convenient feature that lets you do away with those scrappy bits of paper you’ll need if you ever want to return a product and claim a refund.

I used it the other week when I needed to return a product to Bunnings because it wasn’t the right option for our renovation. The Bunnings supervisor was not having a bar of it unless I could produce the actual receipt. But when I found the payment in my phone, via SortMe, suddenly there was no problem.

It’s another brilliant way to plug the leaky bucket of money dripping away, simply because most of us find it a hassle to sort through old records. Suddenly that’s not a problem anymore.

Tools and training.

I’m a fan of SortMe but there are other tools you could use to take back control of your monthly outgoings. Pocketsmith and MyBudgetPal provide a similar service. You can use any tool you like, but the key thing is that you’re plugging the leaky bucket.

Just for the record, we don’t earn a referral fee or commission if you click on the SortMe link in this article and download the app. However, you will get a discount on the monthly fee. Instead of $29 you’ll pay $9 – saving you $20 per month. Isn’t that brilliant!

And if you’d like help to set up one of these money-saving tools, I’d be more than happy to spend 15 minutes with you. I’ll show you how I’ve set up SortMe and demonstrate a few of the features. Before you know it, you’ll be cancelling useless payments for fun!

Feel free to set up a 15 minute session via our online calendar. As always our service is free.

And this time it could actually save you money.

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