Egg Money

Hatching your investments

How Egg Money works

You shop as usual. Afterwards you photograph the receipt, and Egg Money works out what the store brands on it saved you. That is all the test version does.

You photograph the receipt.

Any grocery receipt, from any store. Long ones take two or three photos.

Before your first one, the app asks for your agreement to how the photo is read.

Grocery storeOct 13, 1:56 PM

  • Store-brand macaroni & cheese0.89
  • Store-brand toasted oats2.49
  • Store-brand tomato soup0.99
  • Name-brand ketchup, 20 oz3.99
  • Bananas, 2.1 lb1.22
  • Store-brand shredded cheddar2.49
  • Store-brand sandwich bread1.99
  • Store-brand large eggs2.79

Total16.85

What the receipt says. An example with made-up prices.

An exact saving

You paid $0.89 for the store brand. The name brand was $1.49 at the same store on a recent day, adjusted for size. The difference is your saving: $0.60.

Savings can be exact today on receipts from two grocery chains in St. Louis. For one of them, the name brand's price comes from another store, and the line says which. Every saving shows what it was compared with.

A receipt line in the app, from demo data: store-brand macaroni and cheese, paid $0.89, saved $0.60, exact, marked New swap. Below it: the name brand was $1.49 at the same store on Oct 1. The first time you bought the store brand in place of the name brand.

An estimate

Here we had no name-brand match, so the figure is about what a name brand usually costs more for soup, broth and chili. The dashed box and the ≈ sign say it is an estimate.

At stores other than those two chains, every saving is an estimate.

A receipt line in the app, from demo data: store-brand tomato soup, paid $0.99, about $0.30, estimated. Below it: soup, broth and chili: about what a name brand usually costs more.

A swap you missed

A name-brand item that has a store-brand swap shows what the swap would have saved, and what the store brand cost at that store. It is never added to your total.

A receipt line in the app, from demo data: name-brand ketchup, 20 ounces, paid $3.99, $1.50 missed. Below it: the store-brand swap, store-brand ketchup 20 oz, was $2.49 here.

Two totals, never mixed

Exact and estimated are added up separately, for each receipt, for the month and for all time, so you can tell how firm the number is.

Fresh produce, meat, deli and bakery items are left out. There is no fair name-brand comparison for them.

The top of a receipt in the app, from demo data: Grocery store, total $16.85. Saved on this receipt: $4.25, exact, and about $0.72, estimated, shown side by side.

The app pictures show demo data. Every price on this page is made up.

It adds up, receipt by receipt.

The plan is to help you move that saving to an investment account you already have. The help with that is not built yet.

Sign-up opens soon. See who the test is for.

The list of receipts in the Egg Money app, marked "Demo data": three receipts, each with its exact and estimated saving.

Questions

The saving

Is "exact" what I would really have paid?
It is the usual shelf price. If the name brand was on sale that week, or you had a coupon for it, the real saving is smaller.
How accurate is it?
It is a test, and it will make mistakes: an item misread, a wrong match. You can correct any line. Finding these mistakes is the reason for the test.
Do I get paid, or earn points?
No. The saving is money you already kept at the checkout by choosing the store brand. Egg Money measures it. It does not pay you.
Is this connected to a grocery store?
No. Egg Money is independent. It is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any grocery store or brand.

Investing

Is this an investing app?
That is what we are building. It is not one yet. Today Egg Money measures what store brands save you, and nothing more. It does not hold, move or invest money.
Where would the money go?
To an investment account you already have, and you would be the one to move it there. Nothing is connected today, and we have no arrangement with any investment company. You would decide how to invest it.
What should I invest in?
We cannot tell you that. We are not investment advisers and we do not give investment advice.
Does it connect to my bank account?
Not in this test. It reads a photo of your receipt and nothing else.

The test

What are you asking of testers?
Install the test app, photograph a grocery receipt, and fix anything it gets wrong. After that, use it for as long as it is useful to you. The test runs for about six weeks.
What do I get?
An early look, and a direct line to the two people building it. The app pays nothing: no points, no cash back.
Does it cost anything?
The test is free. We have not decided what the finished product will cost.
Who are you?
We are two founders in St. Louis. Write to us at [email protected].

Your information

What does the app collect, and what happens to it?
  • We collect your email address, your ZIP code, your receipt photos, and the items, prices, store and date read from them.
  • You sign in with a six-digit code sent to your email. There is no password.
  • Your receipt photos are stored privately. In the app only you see them. We look at one only if you ask for help with it, or to find out why a receipt was read wrongly.
  • An AI service from another company, Anthropic's Claude, reads each photo on our behalf to list the items. The app asks for your agreement to this before your first receipt.
  • We instruct the reader not to record card numbers or loyalty numbers, and we do not use them. The photo itself shows whatever your receipt shows.
  • We use prices from receipts to keep our price list current. The prices your receipts added are removed if you delete your account.
  • We measure whether the app is useful, for example by counting how many people scan a second receipt.

This website collects nothing. The full details will be in the privacy policy (draft).

Can I leave?
Any time. You can delete your account in the app. That removes your email address, your receipts, your photos and the prices your receipts added to our price list. If you no longer have the app, the account deletion page (draft) says how to ask.