Trend Vetter: Last Digit Widget.

I’d love to have more money – I’m sure I’m not alone. My main issue? I don’t set aside as much as I’d like, so the ‘Last Digit Widget’ massively appealed – to snap me out of my imminent-lottery-win stupor.

Here’s the idea: you check your bank balance daily in the Starling app and transfer the final digit — either in pennies or pounds — to your ‘Last Digit Widget’ Space. So, if your balance was £806.34, you might transfer 4p or £4. Your choice. 

The point of transferring manually is to be more aware of your finances in general – and to embed the habit into daily life. Rather than a bunch of automated payments, you’re looking at your comings and goings daily in a more granular way. 

If you ended up transferring £9 a day, you’d end up putting aside a cool £3,285 per year. It’s the sort of habit that has “new year’s resolution” written all over it, but you can start it at any time, and even dipping in for a week or two should be constructive.

It’s a nice combination of high-tech and low-fi, requiring you to make a daily financial decision. There’s something quite psychologically powerful about starting every day by contributing something, however small, to my financial future.

Even at this tiny scale, I feel like I’m proactively looking out for myself – rather than letting things happen and hoping for the best. Nonetheless, for the next four days I go for the big-money option: two pounds! Seven pounds! Wild, wild times.

This, I soon realise, is not sustainable. My last-digit experiment coincides with a period where a lot more money leaves my account than enters it. So it’s back to the pennies, with perhaps a slightly deeper understanding of how far I have to go.

On Day 8 I do my morning transfer, and in doing so, see the transaction for the taxi I took the night before. I feel a pang of regret – it feels frivolous. I’ve spent over a week gradually building up to a whopping £15.17, and spent more than that in one journey. The bus would have taken an extra twenty minutes but at a fraction of the cost.

I make three purchases on Day 9 which all feel like “about a tenner”. Looking at them the next morning, they actually come to over £46. I would never have realised that, if not for my morning Last Digit Widget session. Being more aware of what I’m spending is a step on the way to spending less in general. 

On Day 12 I do something long overdue. I’ve had a Direct Debit for a Google Drive account I don’t use any more; it’s £2.49 a month and I keep meaning to cancel it. But now, after moving one penny, I finally do it — potentially the most financially prudent 45 seconds of my year.

After two weeks, I’ve put £27.32 aside. But I’ve actually saved more than that: I’ve eradicated an unnecessary monthly cost and vowed never to take a taxi in anything less than a hurricane. 

Overall, I’m a fan. The ‘Last Digit Widget’ has successfully made me more aware of what I’ve got, what I’m spending and where it’s going. These small amounts feel like more than the sum of their parts: they feel like a statement of intent for my financial future.

*Starling commissioned Mortar Research to poll 2,040 national representative respondents in December 2025 about their saving habits.

**The article above includes general information and should not be taken as financial advice. If you have questions about your specific circumstances, please speak to an independent financial advisor.