Life Pro Tips

A high yield savings account is good for short term savings. Instead of barely earning anything on a regular savings account, you can earn anywhere from 4% to 6% in interest just for putting money there. It has all the standard protections of a regular account (i.e. FDIC insured) so there’s nothing much to lose.

I use 2 online savings sites.

One is Acorns, which connects to your bank account and takes the roundup amounts when you buy something and puts it into an account. For example, if you buy something that’s $2.79, it puts the roundup $.11 in your account, then invests that money to help it grow. You can choose whether your investment is safe and produces low relatively safe returns, moderate risk/return, or high risk that can produce high return or can lose money. I have mine set to moderate, and I get decent returns.

The other used to be called Digit, but now it’s called Oportun. You connect it to your bank account, and it monitors your spending. It takes some out and puts it in savings based on how much you have in your account and how much it thinks you can spare. The thing I like is that it all happens in the background, and I don’t have to do anything. It just saves money for me. Right after I get paid it takes larger chunks than at the end of the month when it might only take a few cents.

If I need my money back, Acorns takes about a week because they have to sell off my stocks and then transfer the money back to my bank account. Oportun usually has any money I withdraw back in my bank account on the next business day. Both of them are FDIC insured.

Something that has worked well for me: creating a Charles Schwab account and setting it up to automatically transfer x dollars from my regular checking to their account. Once that was setup, I configured it to automatically buy 0.9x dollars worth of their Schwab index funds every month. It has performed well through thick and thin since I set this all up a few years ago.

The remaining 0.1x I leave in there as a buffer/short term savings. I don’t have a convenient way to access that money (debit card, checking, etc.), so it’s a good rainy day fund that I can transfer to my regular bank account if I need it.

Automate like crazy. Set up the transfer to the savings, and try to forget about it.

Other people have suggested the broader ideas of saving, but I'm going to get into the details of how to spend less money.

I follow the PERK system, and have found it to be very helpful. It takes a lot of effort initially, but becomes easy once you get to a routine. There are a bunch of explanations on this, so here is the first one from Google:

https://lifehacker.com/give-your-budget-a-tune-up-with-the-perk-method-1748020270

(To find others, I had to search for "Perk postpone eliminate reduce keep")