How to Trick Yourself Into Saving Money

Saving money isn’t always the most fun activity, especially if you aren’t a frugal person by nature.  To make the process of saving painless, try tricking yourself into saving!

There are MANY ways to do this.  Here are a few of my favorite ways!

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Automate, Automate, Automate

I think this is the best way to save.  Set it up so that a certain amount of your check automatically deposits into a savings account or retirement account.  That way, you don’t even have to think about it and the money always goes in every month.

My husband is a spender and he really struggles with saving.  Yet, he still saves 4% of his paycheck every two weeks, without fail.  Why?  Because it’s automatic and he doesn’t have to spend a second even thinking about it.

The money is gone before he even sees it, so there’s no temptation to spend it.

Keep The Change

When you receive change, put it in a coin jar.  Keep saving your pennies for several weeks or months (or years).  Once the jar is full, head to your bank and deposit the change into your savings account.

You might be surprised by how much money you have in coins!  The little things add up.

Resist Lifestyle Inflation

When you receive a raise, it’s easy to bump up your spending accordingly.  Instead, pretend you never received the raise.  If you’re getting an extra $300 per month now, transfer that $300 to savings each month.

There’s no need to give into lifestyle inflation every time your income increases.  If you live below your means now, you’ll be thanking yourself later!

Bill Yourself

I love this one!  Make savings a “bill” that you schedule to pay.  My husband and I are currently saving for our first home, and we do this.  Depending on when we get paid (which varies slightly from month to month), we’ll pick a date to pay our savings “bill”.

On the day your savings “bill” is due, transfer the money to savings – no excuses!

Round Up

When you track your spending, round all of your bills up.  For example, make a $54.27 bill $55 and make a $101.37 bill $102 (or $105).

Do this for tracking all of your bills all month long.  At the end of the month, add up the total and transfer that amount to savings.

Pay It Forward 

Did you just pay something off?  Maybe you had a $200 per month car payment.  Instead of blowing an additional $200 every month, why not put that $200 toward savings?

You probably won’t miss it if you aren’t used to seeing that money anyway.

Don’t Blow It

Did you receive some unexpected cash?  Maybe you earned a gift card with an app (my favorite money making app is Ibotta), your received a bonus, or perhaps someone gave you a “just because” gift.

Whatever it may be, you don’t need to blow any of that unexpected cash (if you don’t want to).  Put that money toward savings!  You aren’t going to miss it anyway if you weren’t expecting to get it.

If it’s a gift card, use the gift card for something you were going to buy anyway, which will free up cash to add to savings.

For example, if you get a $100 Target gift card, you could use that to buy groceries and then you could transfer $100 of your allotted grocery money to savings.

Tricking Yourself Into Saving

Saving money doesn’t have to be a painful process.  There are plenty of easy ways to trick yourself into saving.

If you need money now, these tips will help you to pocket a little more cash quickly.

Start saving now; you’ll thank yourself later!