I am the first to admit, I am not a penny pincher. (Kind of ironic, since one of my first successful online programs was called Penny Pinching Publicity.)

But there were times I knew I could do better and wanted to.  It didn’t help that for a few years there was this show called “Extreme Couponing” that I was obsessed with.

(I was also obsessed with the show “Hoarders” but I didn’t aspire to be one. Although I think I watched it because it made me feel better about my ‘stuff’.)

Believe me, I tried. I clipped coupons.  I looked for sales. Heck, I even negotiated a reduced monthly fee for my cable TV.

What I realized each and every time was reducing expenses was nearly a full-time job in itself. Nope, I will never be a stockpiler of savings. I have too much else to do.

But it still nagged at me.

Then I found Trim.

It’s an AI app and service created by Thomas Smyth and Daniel Petkevich Thomas, who realized they were paying for subscriptions and other fees for services they weren’t using. Hey, we’ve all been there: after paying for three streaming music services, we realized the one included with our Amazon Prime account was good enough.

Here’s how it works:

Sign up for Trim, connect your bank accounts through their secure system, and let Trim do its work.  The AI scours your accounts for recurring payments and subscriptions and then will ask you which ones you want to keep, and which ones you want to let go.  Then they cancel the ones you don’t want to keep on your behalf.   This service in itself is great, but there’s more to the service than canceling subscriptions.

I saved $540 on my mobile phone bill because of Trim.

That’s right! Trim saved me $540 annually, and another $120 on my security system charge with its bill negotiations team. One of the best services they have is they work with cable companies, mobile phone companies and other service providers to get a reduction on your bills.

I was dubious they could do it, especially since I just dropped a phone line with my mobile provider. (You know how those cell services hate you dropping a line!) But within days, I was told they had worked their magic.

So what’s the catch? 

Trim charges a ‘success fee’ of 33% of the annual savings when they successfully negotiate you a better deal. (They charge nothing if they can’t reduce your bills.) They keep monitoring your service providers and negotiate again if they think they can save you more money.

I say it’s worth it, especially if you don’t have a lot of time to do such negotiations.  A word (or words) of warning: Trim starts negotiating on your behalf right away, so if they get a huge savings for you (like mine) your fee will be large too ($178.20, in my case) that is charged right away. Although you are saving long term, that 33% can be a bit of a shock the first time.

Find out more about Trim.