Put More Money in Savings with These Five Strategies

Why do you work so hard on lowering your expenses only to blow the money you actually saved? It seems like that’s pretty normal, right?

Frugality is popular and while that’s great, is being frugal actually increasing the size of your savings account?

If not you can put more money in savings with one of these five strategies.

Create a Bill Calendar and Mark Savings as a Bill

You pay your bills every month. You write checks for rent, get online and pay things like phone bills and utilities. If you’re responsible enough to pay your bills why aren’t you saving any money? The answer is you’re not planning for it!

Sit down and create a bill calendar. List out all of your bills. At the very top list your monthly savings goals. Now at the beginning of each month make your savings the first “bill” that you pay.

To keep up with this idea you can print out a monthly bill calendar and put a check in each month as you make your payments.

Have Side Gig Income Automatically Deposited Into Savings

This is my absolute favorite way to save money and it’s extremely effective.

What I do to make this work is first start by breaking down my savings goals. Let’s say for instance I have two goals – one to increase my emergency fund and the second to save for a large purchase. I’ll then create specific saving accounts through Capital One 360 for these goals.

Next, I’ll dedicate specific streams of side hustle income to go toward each goal. For instance, let’s say I have two freelance writing clients. I’ll have one client direct deposit my payment into the emergency fund savings account the other deposit my payments into the general savings account.

Now my money is out of sight and out of mind. Plus, the more work I put into increasing my side hustle income the more money I’ll have to save.

This strategy is a win-win. Since you’re not used to spending your side hustle income you won’t miss it and your bank account will grow each and every month!

If You’re a Couple, Try Living On Income

This is a tried and true strategy and I mention it here because it can work wonders. However, that’s only IF both parties are on board.

If you can convince your significant other to try this technique you’ll be surprised at how quickly your savings add up.

I also recognize the fact that it might be impossible for you to live solely off of one person’s income. If this is the case perhaps you could try to save one paycheck per month instead of the entire monthly income. You can always adjust your savings plan as you see fit.

Have Money Direct Deposited in Savings

Another simple way to really add to your savings each month is to have money direct deposited from your paycheck straight into savings. You can start small, say with $20 each paycheck. Then each month increase that amount by $5.

Five dollars isn’t an amount that you’re likely to miss but it will really add up if you do this each month.

Eliminate One Bill and Save the Money

Look through all of your recurring monthly bills. Find one thing that you can cut. It doesn’t have to be huge either. That $20 per month gym membership you never use is still an extra $20 per month!

When you find that one thing you’re paying for but don’t actually use cancel it and save the difference each month. Make sure you have that difference automatically taken from your checking account and into savings every so that you don’t forget!

Make Your Savings Hard to Touch

Make your savings hard to access. There’s no point in working so hard to save money if you’re just going to spend it on a whim.

I personally use and recommend an online bank like Capital One 360 for savings. By using an online bank that is different than your normal bank you won’t be able to immediately touch your money. It’ll take, on average, 2-3 days for the money to transfer, meaning you can’t spend your money on impulse.

What savings strategies have worked best for you?