Hugo - the Wealthcare® Buddy I Never Knew I Needed

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One month ago, I wrote about Hugo, a financial app and digital account that is designed to help us spend in smarter ways, save up for our goals sooner and grow our money faster through physical gold investment (for now).

In the process of that, Hugo wants to help us build long-term healthy financial habits.You can read more about Hugo in my previous blog post HERE, including how to sign up for an account and receive $20 referral signup bonus too!

Read it? Good.

Because now I am going to share my experience with Hugo after using it for one month. And the TL;DR version? Hugo is the Wealthcare® Buddy that I never knew I needed!

Envelope Savings with Money Pots for my Family

The envelope savings system is a way to track exactly how much money one has in each budget category for the month by keeping cash tucked away in envelopes. At the end of the month, one can see how much cash is left by taking a quick peek in the respective envelopes. For example, one will be for a staycation, one would be for a big-ticket item while another would be for emergencies.

But there isn't any need for physical envelopes or piggy banks with Hugo. It does this virtually by having Money Pots that you can set for specific purposes. But better than that, Money Pots allows you to set up a monthly savings schedule which you can easily monitor your progress easily with a simple tap in the Hugo app.

Like the monthly savings schedule I had set up for myself.

Using Hugo Money Pots to Teach My Kids About Finance

Aside from saving for a Playstation 5 console, I had also set up individual Money Pots for my 3 monkies.

The kids each started off with a $5 goodwill donation from me but to grow their own Money Pot, I have told them that is entirely up to them.

And after one month, this is how much their pots have grown.

What did they do to earn the money? Two words. Household chores. 😁

Every time they complete a household chore like washing the dishes, hanging the laundry, mopping the floor, I top up their Money Pots. At least this made the entire Phase 2 HA more bearable.

And yes, washing the toilet earns more money in case you are wondering. LOL.

But earning money is one thing. The more important lesson here, I feel, is educating my kids the concept of saving. And that money doesn't come easily and saving up for something actually takes a lot of discipline.

I previously also shared that back in 2019, we had set aside a piggy bank to save up for a year-end trip to Europe. This piggy bank was placed near our door and we had to empty our loose change from our pockets every time we returned home.

The good thing was it taught the monkies the concept of saving and the value of delayed gratification too... but the troublesome thing about it?  We had NO idea how much we had saved every month unless we emptied the piggy bank and counted the coins... so the kids couldn't keep track of the amount saved every month. So the process of saving was not as tangible because they could not see how much their savings has grown.

It's a different story with Hugo's Money Pots. With them, my kids are able to monitor their saving progress religiously and I dare say it even acts as a motivation for them to try to increase their 'earnings' because they want to see their savings grow. 😆

And that explains why Ale's Money Pot far surpasses her 2 brothers - she eagerly volunteered her services when I needed to edit a few videos for a brand that I work with. (Yes, her self-taught video editing skills are far better than mine) And because I don't want to be accused of taking advantage of free labour, I had to pay her a decent fee, no?

Budgeting for Household Expenses with Hugo's Money Pots

In fact, I also see Money Pots being something extremely useful for parents too. Parents can apply the envelope savings system by creating Money Pots for various purposes, like kid's tuition fees, enrichment fees, and even utilities' bills.

And the wifey did just that. In her Hugo account, she had set up different Money Pots meant for different expenditures, from paying for the kids' tuition to our Netflix and Spotify subscriptions to even our grocery shopping. Every month on a fixed date, she schedules deductions from her Spend Account to the respective Money Pots. And we have definitely found this to be very useful as it helps us to set up a proper monthly budgeting system so that it is easier to manage our monthly cashflow. And you know what? We share our monthly budget with our kids so it is yet another teaching moment for them too! 😁

Roundups as an Enforced Saving Habit (& Teaching Tool for kids)

One of my fave features of Hugo (and the wifey's) is Roundups.

To put it simply, Hugo rounds UP our spending to the nearest dollar. Every time you spend on your Hugo Platinum Visa Debit Card, Hugo rounds up your purchase to the nearest dollar and puts the excess into savings.

For example, a $2.52 purchase will result in having $3 (rounded up to the nearest dollar) debited from your Hugo account with the excess $0.48 going into your accumulated Roundups.

So all of the accumulated Roundups goes into your savings pool which will then be used to buy physical gold via Hugo’s Gold Vault. Yes, that is also a form of investment right there, but more on Gold Vault later!😉

And after using Hugo for one month, I have noticed my spending pattern.

While I used my credit card for big and less frequent purchases like a new printer, and my folding bicycles, I find myself reaching for my Hugo debit card for everyday purchases like groceries, coffee, takeaways.

Why?

Because these everyday purchases allow me to generate Roundups more quickly, which is super great to grow my Gold Vault with. Much like this purchase I made at Cold Storage.

A $0.99 roundup! That's the pinnacle of rounding up when it comes to Hugo. 😁

And if you have younger kids, teaching them roundups will be useful for their Math too. My kids are probably too old for this roundup 'game' (unless I throw in differentiation) but younger kids will take great interest in rounding up your purchases before checking the Hugo app to see if they have the correct answer.

Teaching the Concept of Investing & Dollar Cost Averaging to Kids

As I had mentioned above and also in my previous post, the roundups accumulated are converted into physical GOLD and invested into your Gold Vault automatically on a weekly basis.

And over the period of one month, I had seen my gold investment grow.

Well, it may seem insignificant for now but I love how I can keep my gold investment active without much effort. As a famous Malay proverb goes, "Sedikit-sedikit lama-lama jadi bukit" which means "Bit by bit, over time, it will accumulate into a mountain". Similarly, the little steps one takes to invest in gold week after week can lead to results over time.

This is perfect for those who find it difficult to set aside a sum of money as savings every month. Because Hugo's Roundups automatically invests the difference in gold, you are practically saving without the uncomfortable feeling of tightening your belt.

Personally, I also love how the Gold Vault feature allows me to teach my kids about the concept of investing as opposed to leaving our money in the bank to earn a paltry monthly interest. I shared with them how Gold is often lauded as a stable investment and explained why it is important that we try our best to make our money work harder for us - after taking calculated risks, of course.

I think I must have piqued their interest in investing in gold because for the past few weeks, they have been monitoring the price of Gold on a nearly daily basis. They will then compare with my investment amount on my Hugo app and see if I had made a profit or loss. 😅

And that was when I also introduced the concept of Dollar Cost Averaging to them.

Dollar-cost averaging is a technique that entails investing a fixed amount of money in the same fund, stock or commodity at regular intervals over a long period of time. Because nobody can really time the market, I am investing a sum of money into the Gold Vault on a fixed basis whether the price of Gold is up or down. Over time, the average cost per gram of gold I invest will probably compare quite favourably with the price I would have paid if you had tried to time my purchase of Gold.

So to walk the talk, I have also set up a recurring monthly investment of $30 where the amount will be debited automatically from my Spend Account to purchase gold.

It's a simple investing technique but it's also a safe and steady way to build up investments. Something that I told the monkies, especially the boys if they wish to do some investing of their own in the not-too-distant future.

So will I still continue to use Hugo? OF COURSE!

Because for me, the Hugo Card is not just another debit card in my wallet that I use for purchases. It has become an awesome addition to my daily routine because it has gone beyond what a usual card is.

Hugo Has An Easy User Interface and Great User Experience

And what really complements the card is how easy and fuss-free the Hugo app is. All the information presented in the app is extremely clean which makes it convenient to view all of my transactions at a glance. In addition, the ease of navigation from feature to feature - whether I wish to take stock of my Money Pots or view my Gold transactions - is a huge plus for me.

In fact, it has been such a breeze adapting Hugo into my everyday life that it is now a part of my lifestyle where not only does it form saving and investing habits, my Hugo Wealthcare® Buddy imparts teaching moments to my kids too!

Want to welcome Hugo Wealthcare® Buddy into your life too?

Try it for yourself FOR FREE!

Head over HERE to sign up and get a $20 Goldback® referral signup bonus when you sign up for Hugo's referral scheme and spend $100 on your Hugo Card within 45 days of signing up!

On top of that, you can earn $10 Goldback® for every new referral that signs up via your unique share link and spends $100 on their Hugo card within 45 days of signing up too. And they get the referral signup bonus too!

*Goldback® rewards get deposited into your Gold Vault 60 days after signing up.

Visit HERE for more details.