Your money stays in your account. Amblee only counts it.

Some accounts cannot be connected, and some people would rather not connect one. A screenshot of the transfer works instead.

What leaves your phone

Your phone reads the screenshot, and the picture itself stays on your phone. Amblee receives the amount you confirm, a fingerprint of the image, the photo’s ID in your library and the time it was taken. The fingerprint stops the same screenshot being logged twice in one month. If you have chosen a connected account to count, Amblee also receives the text your phone read, so a wrong read can be checked against your bank.

It counts when you log it

A logged screenshot counts toward the goal the same way a settled deposit does, and it can lift the block on its own. It counts toward the month you log it in.

Matched against your bank

If you have also chosen a connected account to count, Amblee looks there for money that has settled and counts, in the same month and of the same amount, give or take a dollar. When it finds a match, the screenshot stops counting and the bank’s record counts in its place. A screenshot that has not been matched after 21 days stops counting. On its own, that never brings back a block that has already lifted.

If you delete one

Deleting a screenshot you logged takes its amount back off. If you are then under the goal, the block comes back, whatever day of the month it is.

With no account chosen to count

A screenshot keeps counting for its month. Amblee has no way to see money leave an account it is not connected to.

Amblee does not check which bank or credit union an account is with. The savings account at the bank or credit union you already use counts exactly like any other.

If you do not have a separate savings account yet, these are worth looking for when you open one.

No monthly fee

A fee is money leaving the account, and on a savings goal, money leaving the counted account comes off the month.

No minimum balance

So a low balance in a hard month does not cost you a charge on top.

Insured

FDIC insurance at a bank, NCUA insurance at a credit union. The account should say which.

Separate from everyday checking

On a savings goal, payments out of the counted account come off the month, so the account your bills and card payments come out of is the wrong one to count. A separate account means the number you see is the money you set aside.

Any account you own counts the same. How Amblee makes money says who pays Amblee, and the rules any paid link would have to follow.

With a connected account, the total is what stayed put, not what passed through. What brings it down depends on the goal.

Savings goals

Money that leaves the counted account comes off the month’s total: a withdrawal, a transfer out, a payment or a fee. The goal stays the same, so there is that much more to move.

Investing goals

From your bank account, only transfers to and from a brokerage change the total. A transfer to a brokerage adds to it, and money coming back from one can come off it. Rent, card payments, fees and other spending from that account do not change it.

Soon after the unlock

If the total goes down within 72 hours of the unlock, for one of the reasons above or because your bank reverses a deposit or transfer, and that takes you back under the goal, the block comes back.

After that

The total still goes down, so the number you see is always net, but that no longer brings the block back before the 1st.