Considering the number of apps I review, it’s rare that I can keep track of when I first heard about the tools in question. But, in the case of Bumped, I distinctly remember scrolling through my Instagram feed when I saw an ad for an app that said it would reward you with stock from the merchants you shopped at. Between that big claim and the fact that I needed to join a waitlist at the time, I was skeptical to say the least. Yet, cut to today, and Bumped is not only real but has become one of my favorites — as evidenced by its inclusion on my “best of” list for 2020.
Although the app did make some slightly disappointing changes, on the whole, it’s only managed to improve. That trend continued this week as Bumped revealed that HelloFresh was being added to their Loyalties line-up, giving customers 3% of their purchases from the meal delivery service back in the form of stock.
With the addition of HelloFresh comes a new Meal Kits loyalty category… that consists only of HelloFresh for the time being. Nevertheless, that brings the total number of Loyalties users can hold at one time up to 16, with 32 brands represented overall (customers can choose one in each category). The complete list of categories now consists of:
- Burgers
- Club Warehouse
- Coffee
- Drug Stores
- Family Dining
- Grocery
- Home Improvement
- Meal Kits
- Mexican Food
- Music Subscriptions
- Pizza
- Ride Sharing
- Superstores
- Telecommunications
- Video Subscriptions
- Vineyards
As someone who doesn’t currently subscribe to any meal kits (but has considered it), what’s interesting to me is how HelloFresh purchases will be rewarded in Bumped. Up until now, the stocks earned always corresponded to the brand you made the purchase from. For example, shopping at Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club would earn you fractional shares of $WMT, while a purchase from Starbucks would result in $SBUX stock. However, since HelloFresh isn’t publically traded in the United States, users will instead receive Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund (VTI) ETF stock. This is a big deal to me as it suggests we could see a variety of smaller companies coming to Bumped — something I think would be great overall, assuming the larger players stick around as well, of course.
Bumped has been one of my favorite finance apps for a while now, allowing me to amass more than $120 worth of stocks so far. Therefore, I’m always excited to see it grow and expand — even if the specific companies coming aboard don’t necessarily apply to me. So, hopefully this is just the beginning for Bumped and that more brands (publically traded or not) decide to come aboard.