BillShrink: You can never be too rich or too thin

August 25, 5:01 PMSF Personal Finance ExaminerBarbara Bryn Klare

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Schwark Satyavolu, BillShrink

When you're talking cashmere sweaters and other things, shrinkage is a bad thing. But when you're talking bills, shrinkage is definitely a good thing. If you're talking saving money on your cell phone plan, credit card and gas bills, BillShrink.com is a very good thing. Why? For one thing, it provides a free personalized savings plan especially for you - not just anyone.

There are plenty of good consumer comparison sites, including LowerMyBills.com, LetsTalk.com and many others, but I'm hard-pressed to find a savings site that is as good as BillShrink at delivering targeted help with your unique financial situation. It's not hard to get the details on the latest and greatest new rewards card from B of A (and there are loads of sites that will help you do just that), but the real value comes when you are able to come to a decision quickly - armed with an analysis based on your spending and payment habits - and start saving money today.

I recently spoke with Schwark Satyavolu, co-founder and president of BillShrink, based in Redwood City, to discuss the ins and outs of saving on your bills.

I'm pretty sure everyone pays less for their cell plans than I do, but I've never found the time to sort through the different options; you can see why someone would choose to drop a latte or two, instead of going after the big fish and really saving some real moolah - BillShrink saves the average user $1500 (according to their site - from my research this number is reasonably accurate). Information overload is very real when it comes to trying to evaluate your bills and it is the very concept behind BillShrink: when Schwark and his wife tried to compare rates to change their family cell phone plan, they were overloaded with data on coverage, features and pricing, and Schwark (former CTO at Yodlee) figured out how  to solve this complex data problem by creating a dynamic decision engine and... BillShrink was born.

Currently, BillShrink is concentrating on some consumer basics: your cell phone plan, credit cards and gas bill, but they will be launching their next savings verticals at  FINOVATE the end of September and more by the end of the year. Although Schwark wouldn't confirm when, car insurance will surely be another savings arena soon.

The site is very usable, and the blog is packed with real information (like the TRUE cost of ownership of the iPhone vs. Android vs. Pre) and without a lot of cross-talk or personal chat; just good, hard facts. I was only able to find one gotcha. The gas price information (which to be fair, is still in beta) is not as complete as I would like; some local gas stations I go to were not listed, but the numbers maven in me was thrilled to see that they include the cost of driving to each gas station from your home or work ("detour cost") into the true cost of a fill-up. Their email alerts are simple and unassuming. Here's an example of my latest gas bill alert:

But is it unbiased? I wouldn't know (and it's hard to tell with any site), but according to the Better Business Bureau, it is. Dick Epstein, president of the BBB, had this to say about BillShrink: "This is a way for a company who seems to be keeping up with the latest rates, to give you an impartial comparison." Billshrink reportedly has the most comprehensive data set for each credit card available today and they collect their information independently from the issuers (another site, lowcards.com, also keeps a complete and purportedly impartial list of the 1060+ credit cards in the US today that can be sorted by APR, Grace Period and more). Schwark estimates that credit card issuers make as much as $1,000 to 2,000 off of each of us (hence the $1500 savings number), because we all tend to pick a vendor and stick to them, neglecting to run the numbers to see if the credit card is still worth it or not.

You wouldn't want to run that expensive cashmere sweater through the wash. But you will want to run your bills through BillShrink.com - and come out at least one size smaller. Because you can never be too rich or your bills too thin.

 © 2009 Barbara Bryn Klare. All Rights Reserved.