Anchorage Realtor July Leslie Launches an App to Help Consumers Save for Retirement
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Sept. 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Realtor July Leslie announces today that she has just launched an app to help consumers curb frivolous spending and save for retirement. The app, entitled "OpShop," was born out of her personal goal to make saving money easier and more desirable. OpShop meets this goal by uniquely showing the profound, long-term effects of making fewer small purchases from day-to-day.
The app's website, opshopapp.com and an in-app tutorial explain how it works. First, the user must set a long-term retirement or savings goal. July emphasizes that the goal must be long-term in order to fully realize the impact of compound interest, something that has little effects for goals set one to two years in the future.
Next, instead of buying, say, a coffee, users can take a picture of the coffee they were going to purchase and enter the cost. The app will immediately display the savings incurred by purchasing one less coffee per day, week, or month. Users can access a chart that tracks their progress. The app is now available for free download on iTunes with a one-time, in-app purchase of $2.99 after the first 3 uses.
"I had been doing the math on my own," July says, "I was asking myself, 'If I didn't go out for dinner one night this week, or if I didn't buy that pair of shoes, where would that money be ten, fifteen, or twenty years from now?' Running the numbers was time-consuming and tedious, but it worked. I started saving more. Then it dawned on me, 'There has got to be an app for that.' To my surprise, there wasn't. So I made one."
According to a recent GoBankingRates survey, one out of every three Americans has no retirement savings whatsoever. Among those who do save, 69% have less than $1,000 in their account. July hopes that initiatives like OpShop will help inspire savings locally as well as nationally.
"I am hoping to share OpShop with as many users as possible," July says, "The principles used by the app helped me, maybe they can help others too! The app is highly interactive and aids long-term savings goals in a unique way--there is truly nothing else like it."
So far OpShop has been an outstanding success, receiving only 5-star reviews on the App Store. Early-adopters are saying things like, "Wish I had this when I was younger. Very helpful," and, "An easy way to stop buying impulse items!"
About the OpShop App
OpShop (options to shopping) is an interactive and fun way to curb frivolous spending and focus on savings and retirement by projecting the future value of daily savings. The OpShop app allows you to project present small savings into the future. Interactive graphs show you how your piggy bank pennies get capitalized by the app's stock average interest rate or by an interest rate you choose. Enter your desired goal savings amount and the app will show you how your current dynamic will look when you retire or use up the savings. Seeing how your saved money capitalizes through time will motivate you to save more and more! Our culture likes the instant gratification of shopping, but with the great visual graphs OpShop offers you get a similar instant gratification by seeing what that item can become if saved. Buy it now on the App Store!
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SOURCE OpShop
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