CEDAR HILLS, Utah — Way before smartphones existed people would save their spare change in jars, but now more payment methods are going digital, making it easier to spend more and lose sight of any savings goals you may have.
So now a Utah-based app called Jelli is trying to strengthen those savings goals by taking an old way of saving and modernizing it.
The app allows you to create virtual containers to help you split up and organize your money.
David Smith, the CEO, and Co-Founder of Jelli said that these jars are supposed to help you save in two ways.
One is by setting funds aside for specific purposes, whether it's vacations, birthdays, anniversaries, college, or maybe just because you want to treat yourself to something extra special.
Whatever it may be, you can assign a jar to it.
The second way it can help you save is by creating a pool of money to control spending.
The Jelli account comes with a physical debit card, but you can also pay with a digital card that works just like ApplyPay.
Each time you buy something it will ask you which jar you'd like to pull that money from.
To get funds into your Jelli account, you can set up direct deposits for things like paychecks and government payments.
“There’s also an additional feature on top of that and that is the ability to grant withdrawal access to people,” said Smith.
A social aspect of Jelli is creating a jar and sharing it with friends to save for something.
"You can see everyone that’s put the money in and then you can see all of the transactions. Everybody that’s part of that jar can see transactions in the jar," Smith.
There is a dormancy fee of $3.50 that gets applied when there are no transactions for 90 days on the account and they only stop when new activity happens, so be sure this app will get used often to avoid surprise charges.
The Jelli app is available for Apple and Android devices.
