No excuses. Make saving automatic. If it helps you along, make it feel like you're making any other payment. Once you make it painful to spend that money psychologically, you'll find that it gets so much easier to make that money grow!
How do we do it?
First, the mechanics. We use Virtual Bank for our money market savings account. {If you'd like a referral, send me an email sowonderfulsomarvelous (at) gmail... we both earn $20.} You can use any of the online banking options that are out there, I encourage you to take a look at all of the options and choose the best for you and your family. I have several friends that rave about ING Direct. The reason I love an online banking option is that it puts the cash *just* out of reach enough that you have to think about spending it, just make sure when you are looking at your options that it is federally insured. It generally takes 2-3 business days for a transfer back into our checking account from our VB account.
Second, put it into action. Set up an automatic payment. You can do this daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc... the more often you deposit the better compound interest works for you. And with that small action, you can just forget about it. The money will be automatically taken out of your account each week, month, etc...
If money is tight in your household, start with just $5 per week. Every little bit counts and you can always add more when it is possible.
Saving automatically works for me!
For all of the other fabulous tips, check out Works for me Wednesday over at the always fabulous We Are THAT Family.
4 comments:
Great idea! Saving is so important in any economy.
Excellent motivation and reminder. Thank you.
Automatic savings is the way to go, I just starting practicing it this year. I use a few different online banks allowing me to have different savings accounts for different savings goals. It's great to see how accounts have grown when you forget about them for a while.
Automatic savings is a great way to save. We've been doing this for years. At some times we save more than at others, but we always try to save something right off the top.
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