How I Trick Myself Into Saving Money

I’m always looking for painless ways to stash money.

The $5 Bill Savings Plan helps me save about $25 a month. I always look on the ground in parking lots for spare change (found two pennies yesterday!) and collect coins in a jar to take to the credit union.

Monthly automated savings helps. An inconvenient savings account (at a bank or credit union across town, for instance) lessens temptation.

But the biggest change to our finances came when I started doing one simple little trick: Rounding.

Remember Rounding?

I recall loving the rounding exercises in elementary school math. After weeks of painstakingly doing long subtraction, 11.82 was suddenly 12! 6.94 was now 7! And 12 minus 7 was 5, give or take a few pennies — so simple.

Rounding can also be a deceptively simple money trick, when you round up expenditures, and round down deposits in your physical or online ledger.

Over the course of a year, these hundreds of transactions begin to add up to real savings

It requires a mental shift, but you may find that rounding will help you build a money cushion that can be invested, used for an emergency savings account, or spent in a significant way that supports your goals.

There’s an App for That

You can easily use the rounding method to manually make adjustments in your checkbook balance. Alternately, you can make it automatic and watch your savings grow.

Acorns is an app that automatically rounds up your expenditures to the nearest dollar and invests the difference. I used the app several years ago and was impressed. You can open an account with a minimal amount and set up automatic investments if you wish.

How About You?

What is your best savings strategy? Have you tried rounding your transactions? Are you using a mobile app to automate any of your savings?

I’d love to hear your thoughts and strategies on the Comments section of this page.