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Get a $5 credit to Digit

From the Cheapskate: This intriguing service helps you save money -- like, actually save it -- and here's five bucks to get you started.

Rick Broida Senior Editor
Rick Broida is the author of numerous books and thousands of reviews, features and blog posts. He writes CNET's popular Cheapskate blog and co-hosts Protocol 1: A Travelers Podcast (about the TV show Travelers). He lives in Michigan, where he previously owned two escape rooms (chronicled in the ebook "I Was a Middle-Aged Zombie").
Rick Broida
3 min read

CNET's Cheapskate scours the Web for great deals on PCs, phones, gadgets and much more. Questions about the Cheapskate blog? Find the answers on our FAQ page.


You know my goal in life is to help you save money, right? Of course, 98 percent of the time, that means getting a deal on goods and services, which still involves spending money. Today, let's talk about actual saving.

Conventional wisdom says you should set aside a portion of every paycheck, the idea being that, over time, you'll grow that savings into a substantial sum -- something you can use to splurge on a vacation, help finance a new car or just cope with the inevitable rainy day.

But how do you actually do that? Put a fiver into a jar every week? Take the time to transfer funds into your PayPal account? The idea is sound; it's the execution that's a hassle.

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Digit aims to help you save money without thinking about it. Digit

Enter Digit, a free service I find very intriguing. Before I describe it, however, let me just wave off anyone who doesn't like to bank online, worries about Internet security, thinks Google is super-evil, and so on. This is not the deal for you.

Digit links to your checking account, analyzes your income and spending habits, then sets aside a few bucks here and there. (OK, even my own description makes it sound rather Big Brother-ish. But don't run screaming just yet.)

The idea here is to make saving efficient, painless and hassle-free. Instead of you looking at your weekly balance, deciding, "I can put aside $15," then actually taking that step, Digit does the heavy lifting. Set it and forget it. Then, at some point in the future, remember you have Digit and discover there's, like, $768 in there. Score!

The service charges no fees of any kind. You can retrieve some or all of your money within one business day.

"Hey, Rick, don't mean to nag or anything, but can we get to the deal already?"

Right! Sorry. For a limited time, AppSumo is offering a $5 credit when you sign up for Digit. That's not a fortune, obviously, but five bucks is five bucks -- and it allows me to introduce you to Digit, which, again, I find very intriguing.

I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this. Is it something you'd use? I mean, you let PayPal move money in and out of your bank account, right? Discuss.

Bonus deal: Do you love science fiction? Then don't miss the StoryBundle Philip K. Dick Award Bundle, which gives you six award-winning DRM-free e-books for whatever price you want to pay. Make it at least $15 and you'll get five additional books, bringing your total cost-per-book to just over a buck. Needless to say, every one of them is a winner of the Philip K. Dick Award for distinguished science fiction.

Bonus deal No. 2: Running out of storage on your desktop or laptop? Before you go to the trouble of a hard-drive upgrade, consider a flash-drive addition. Like this one: For a limited time, and while supplies last, Newegg has the SanDisk Ultra Fit 128GB USB 3.0 flash drive for $29.99 shipped. However! You must purchase it using the Newegg mobile app (#eyeroll) and use coupon code MBL150923B at checkout. But that's an amazing amount of space for 30 bucks, and this tiny drive can be left in full-time.