How RiseUp changed our family finances
Originally posted on LinkedIn, February 18, 2024.
I nearly dismissed RiseUp as a useless product. I installed it, connected our bank accounts and credit cards, and decided to give the free month a chance. The setup was smooth, and I was comfortable because the access I granted was read-only. I even connected Hila from her phone so we could both use it.
During that first month, my excitement about trying something new kept shifting back into skepticism. I went from “I don’t understand how to use this feature” to “I’m never paying them NIS 400 a year for this, and Hila won’t agree to it anyway.” Then Hila said, “Listen, this is a great product.”
Managing money was fairly simple when I was single and only had my own account to watch. With a family, we manage two accounts: one for the household’s regular cash flow and another for major expenses such as the mortgage, savings, and so on. That adds complexity and creates a recurring need to check “where we stand.”
I thought I already had that under control. Each month, I could see that our spending was not eating too deeply into our balance, so I saw no reason to add another product, let alone pay for one. But when Hila told me she could finally see what was happening with our cash flow and that it gave her a sense of control, I understood what RiseUp was actually doing.
RiseUp addresses a need people do not discuss enough, or may not even recognize, because money is sensitive. It is a tool that can improve a relationship at home, because money is sensitive. It also puts questions in front of us that we do not ask ourselves often enough, because money is sensitive.
After 3 months, the skepticism from my first month turned into “How did we not use this before?” The WhatsApp messages we occasionally receive from the system, along with its relatively simple interface, raised our awareness of spending without becoming annoying. They help us stay on top of it and deal with sensitive questions: how much we feel comfortable spending on certain things, how much we can actually spend each month, whether we can really save, how much, and over what period. We can also track what is happening in our accounts over time without effort. The product practically spoon-feeds us the information.
Signing up through a friend came with one month free and another 2 months at 50% off through the RiseUp referral registration. I simply paid for a year. I do not know whether I overpaid, but that now seems beside the point.
I went from almost missing something useful and arrogantly declaring it unnecessary to believing that this technological “dietary supplement” really works. The proof is that every month our cash flow becomes more positive, without making us feel that we are depriving ourselves or being stingy.
