Automate Your Finances

in Banking

It’s Friday and I’m excited and tired.  :) I’m feeling better, but I can’t get this congestion to go away. I got great news: once the credit union receives our check, we will have NO MORE CAR PAYMENTS! That’s an extra $235/month going from expenses to savings column. I’ll talk about that more next week, but I wanted to share that today.

Something that has helped us with paying of the car loan was automating our regular and extra payments.

robot

Have a portion of your paycheck transferred to a high interest savings account.

Start small and automate your money to put into savings. You’ll become use to the slightly small paycheck as you start savings. The first thing you need to save for is an emergency fund. This step can help you build financial cushion, especially in turbulent economic times like these. Find an FDIC bank or CUNA credit union that offer high interest rates for savings and watch it grow faster.

Set up free online bill pay with your bank.

Most banks and credit unions offer this money and time saving feature. Spend an hour setting this up with your bills, account numbers, due dates, and amounts, and you’ll only need a few minutes a month to keep it up.

Take advantage of your company’s 401k program.

Try to at least set aside enough money to receive the company match as it’s basically free money in your pocket. Look for low cost index funds to put your money in.

Have a small portion of your paycheck transferred into an IRA account.

Once your build up your emergency fund, eliminated your credit card debt, and have increased your income; funnel some money into an IRA. You want to still look for low cost index funds to put your money in.

How much of your finances is automated? How has automating your finances improved (or worsen) since switching?

Photo Credit: Crystl

Related Blogs

  • Related Blogs on Automate Your Finances
Share and Enjoy:
  • email
  • Print
  • StumbleUpon
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Reddit
  • Tipd
  • Tumblr
Blog Traffic Exchange Related Posts
  • cowboyWeekly Round Up: Beginning of the Week Photo Credit: crowt59 I had some fun this weekend. I went up to Virginia to enjoy Lake Fest in Clarksville. It was a bit of fun. As for my job hunt, I'm being careful this time around and I updated and tweaked my resume. I sent my resume o......
  • cash-moneyWhat Everybody Ought to Know About Handling Finances in Today's Economy It's not impossible to handle your finances in this economy; it just takes some time. Getting your finances under control is completely doable if you take it step by step. Know exactly where you stand in your finances. You have to be able to answer these questions with specific......
Blog Traffic Exchange Here are Some Other Great Thoughts
  • 5 Of My Favorite Money Saving Sites I regularly scour the internet looking for more money saving ideas and have bookmarked a large number of money saving sites. I have a large list of favorites but here are 5 that I visit frequently: 1. The Dollar Stretcher - I receive their newsletter and find lots of great......
  • Money Savings – Five Easy Ways to Pad Your Savings As you earn to manage your money, savings accounts have to play an important part in your financial plan. Having a well-stocked savings account will allow you to save for future goals as well as build an emergency fund to cushion you from life’s unexpected blows. Before you can reap......

{ 4 trackbacks }

Weekly Round Up: ZooShirts
February 28, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Bill Pay| Why It's Better Than Auto Debit
March 6, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Fixing your Finances|What to Do For Some Common Financial Goals
March 19, 2009 at 9:05 pm
How do you do get rid of credit card debt?
May 4, 2009 at 9:36 pm

{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Craig February 20, 2009 at 3:12 pm

Right now I just manually automate my finances, meaning whenever I get my check, first thing I do it put some away. I should set up automatic transfer to not even worry about this and tempt myself from doing it.

Reply

2 Green Panda February 20, 2009 at 6:02 pm

@Craig: Thanks Craig! That’s what I had to do, because I found excuses to either skip saving or reduce the amount I planned.

Reply

3 Miranda February 23, 2009 at 8:51 am

On top of having a lot of our stuff automated, we have it scheduled in the personal finance software, so that it doesn’t appear as though the money’s even there for us to use. We have found this extremely helpful in terms of getting an accurate picture of what we have to spend.

Reply

4 Green Panda February 23, 2009 at 1:04 pm

@Miranda: Great idea. That’s a clever way to keep money in the right category.

Reply

5 Jason Unger March 16, 2009 at 5:00 pm

Green Panda — you are on your way to ridiculously easy money management.

Congrats on the end of your car payments — are you planning to automate that $235 straight into a new savings account?

Reply

Leave a Comment