Ask Trim Review: Shave Off Extra Expenses (2022)

In the age of countless online subscription services, we tend to sign up and use them for maybe a few months before moving on to the next great thing.

You may have forgotten about those unused subscriptions, but they haven’t forgotten about you. You promised yourself that you’d get around to canceling it, but you forgot … again. 

In our Trim review, we’ll take a look at a cool personal finance bot that is a holistic financial management service dedicated to saving you money.

Trim negotiates your bills with your internet, phone and cable providers and provides a detailed analysis of where your money goes. It also showcases all unnecessary recurring charges and provides recommendations on the right course of action.

So should you ask Trim to take over? Let’s find out!

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How does Trim work?

With so many services and subscriptions these days, we often fail to keep track of them. Many of us don’t bother checking our monthly credit card reports either, so all those subscriptions that aren’t useful anymore are still charging you without you realizing.

Trim understands the importance of your money and helps you identify all these unnecessary expenses. It also helps you negotiate a better deal on things like:

• Phone bills
• Medical bills
• Internet bills
• Cell phone bill

Once Trim has access to your login details and the card you use to pay for these services, it’ll negotiate with your providers to get you a better deal, at a much lower rate.

What is Trim?

In the most basic terms, Trim is a universal financial management service that helps you keep track of your recurring expenses and helps you negotiate with providers through its machine learning AI.

Thomas Smyth, an investment firm veteran and Daniel Petkevich launched the Trim website in 2015, using automation to help customers manage their finances better.

Smyth realized that Comcast had been slowly increasing his mother’s subscription charges until she was paying almost $35 more than she needed to. Smyth realized the need for a platform that helps users keep track of these excessive costs.

As the idea for the Trim app fell into place, they also introduced a bill negotiation service that can negotiate late fees with service providers on behalf of the user, helping you get the best bang for your buck!

Getting Started with Trim

When you start using Trim, you’ll find three main categories on your Trim dashboard:

Tools

In this section of the personal finance dashboard, you’ll find three main tiles, which serve as budgeting tools.

The first, the Comcast Defense Tile, negotiates subscription fees and other charges with your cable, phone, and internet providers, in an effort to lower your monthly bills. Keep in mind that you’ll have to provide your login and card details to Trim so it can negotiate on your behalf.

If Trim successfully reduces your bill, Trim charges 25% of the reduction as its fee each month that you save money.

The second tile is a car insurance optimizer and works to help you find the lowest insurance rates in the market. You will be asked to provide the card, and login details, of your auto insurance account.

A third tile is a customization tool that lets you modify your ‘personal alerts.’ It works in the same way as bank and credit card alerts work.  Trim lets you personalize these text alerts to suit your needs.

For example, you can ask Trim to inform you if your checking account goes below $1500.  Trim will provide an immediate alert message as soon as you drop below the set value.

Wallet

This is where users can find a complete summary of all their financials. It is the comprehensive history of your credit cards and bank account activities and balances.

Each of the subsections here allows users to closely inspect their credit card accounts and financial transactions taking place in those accounts.

If you have been using Trim for long enough, you can also track your balance over time to get an idea of your monthly expenses and savings. This helps you identify any potential expenses you can cut down on.

Upon selecting the spending option for an account, you’ll be redirected to the third tool.

Transactions/Monthly Charges

This tool shows you a list of the transactions you’ve made with the account, including details like the name of the product, time and location of purchase, etc. If you have a recurring charge, like for old subscriptions, you’ll see it in the monthly charges section.

Perhaps the best thing about this section is the ‘See More’ option that lets you view your transaction history in four separate ways:

• Category (Sub-divisions: Income, Restaurants, Shopping, Groceries, Other)
• Recent
• Largest
• Merchant

It provides you with an in-depth look at your financial history that can guide you to making better financial decisions. By grouping expenses together, Trim makes it easier for you to identify expenses, and categories, that could be cut down on.

Additional Features

• Subscription cancellation service: Along with keeping track of all your monthly recurring charges/subscriptions, Trim also provides you with the option of canceling subscriptions and saves you the trouble of going to individual websites and calling your subscription providers.
• Amazon Price Patrol: Trim will surf Amazon to find cheaper and better rates for products you have bought in the last seven days. If it succeeds, it will automatically file a complaint with Amazon so you can get the price difference back.
• Visa Rebates: Users that own a Visa card can earn cashback rebates provided they meet the requirements for the new offers that come in every month.
• Trim Simple Savings: This is a savings account that you can set and forget about. Trim automatically transfers weekly amounts that sum to a 1.5% annual reward on your balance.

Signing up with Trim

To sign up with Trim, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Trim website;
2. Select one of the options: Sign Up Free With Facebook or Sign Up For a Free Trial (using your email);
3. Next, you will be prompted to  choose between Facebook Messenger and your SMS app;
4. Once you have signed up, you will be asked to grant Trim permission to access the bank accounts you wish to use. Provide the details required. ;
5. Get started with your automated Trim savings!

Who is Trim for?

Trim is for anyone who is looking for a hassle-free way to manage their expenses.

Trim helps keep track of your transactions and subscriptions, negotiating better deals with providers, and providing updates and alerts on your financial health.

You may have signed up for services that are beyond your needs, like paying for a 10GB monthly internet plan when your usage never exceeds 5GB. Trim helps you identify these gaps and suggests ways to cut down on unnecessary expenses.

Is Trim legit?

Lots of people don’t like sharing their credit card and login information due to security concerns.

Giving Trim your financial information may seem like a risky move but the fact is Trim can’t use your money for anything without your permission.

Trim has been recognized by large publishers like CNN Business.

Trim’s AI tech uses your transactional data and account/s information to learn and grow. The more information Trim has, the more likely the user is to save money.

If you connect all your accounts and grant Trim access to your login information, you will find that Trim always finds a way to save you money!

There are plenty of bad Trim reviews. Most negative reviews complain that Trim charged them for services, but they didn’t actually save any money. Below is an example of a one-star Trim review.

Trim is fairly transparent in its process. All corrections made are recorded and listed for you to see. You can freely access your entire history of transactions with Trim and see exactly where your money has been saved and how.

All the data you share with Trim is secure and is not shared with any third parties. Rest assured, your finances are safe and secure with Trim.

Trim FAQ’s

The team at Trim has also provided a detailed FAQ section with straightforward answers to most queries.

Advantages of Trim

• Free to Use: Signing up with Trim is absolutely free and grants you access to a host of other services available by Trim. Other value-added, paid services like Trim Concierge, Trim Simple Savings and Bill Negotiation are available but optional.
• Secure: Trim is extremely secure and protects your data with bank-level security, a 256-bit SSL encryption and has encrypted databases. It also has two-factor authentication for signing in, keeping your sensitive information as safe as possible.
• Extensive Support: Trim is compatible with over 15,000 financial institutions in the US. That’s around 98%, so you can expect your financial accounts to be compatible with your Trim account.​

Disadvantages of Trim

Our Trim review wouldn’t be complete without pointing out a few of its downsides.

• No Trim App: Trim doesn’t have a mobile app. Trim users have to rely on having a Facebook account or receiving SMS text messages to make use of the service.
• Botched Negotiations: If your service provider refuses to accept Trim’s negotiation efforts, you may have to call them up yourself and discuss the problem. Also, make sure that Trim isn’t charging you for a botched or failed negotiation.
• Unwanted Subscriptions: Trim can renew and cancel subscriptions. This means that it may renew subscriptions that you do not want to renew or cancel the ones that you do want.
• SMS Charges: Using the SMS app for Trim may leave you with additional charges on your monthly phone bill because you are liable to pay for these SMS messages.​

Is Trim worth your time?

The answer to this question depends on what type of person you may be. Some people wish to take care of everything themselves, so services like Trim don’t really appeal to them in terms of utility.

Alternatively, some prefer accessibility and convenience and for them. And after reading this Trim review, perhaps it’s worth a shot. Even if you like to do everything yourself, you might want to give it a go. 

It all culminates down to what you prefer. But our Trim review found that this little bot can definitely be worth your time if used properly. And you don’t need to worry about the safety of your data and information!

Trim is a convenient, easy-to-use service that helps you save money in places you weren’t aware of. It’s like a financial management service that you can carry around in your pocket, on-call anytime, anywhere!

Have you asked Trim to save you money? Share your experiences with us in the comments below!