“Pay Yourself First”. We’ve all heard it, but sometimes it’s hard to do. Gaining traction on your savings goals can be a challenge when you have a lot of competing demands on your finances like saving for college, buying a home, family vacations, retirement planning, new clothes and shoes for a growing family, etc. However, today we have the tools in place to make paying ourselves first easier than ever.
Preauthorized debits are a great solution to help you achieve your savings goals. Set up is fast and easy – you can sit down and plan once, then let the automation do the heavy lifting. In case you still need some convincing, here are a few other reasons to start automating your savings today.
1. Take Control
By planning ahead and looking at your budget before payday, you’ll be able to take control of your finances. The extra dollars you may have previously spent on coffee or other treats can be shifted for savings, and you’ll know much more about how your money is used every week.
2. Get excited about saving
Regular saving takes a level of discipline that can be hard. But, many people report that once they start automating, they often “forget” about the money that has been moved to their savings account. It’s not long before they are then surprised by just how much that account has grown.
3. Save with competing demands
If you are trying to save for multiple purposes, using automation can help you realize each of your goals because you can create separate budget items for each of your savings goals, then commit the money to a variety of savings and investment options.
4. Convenience
Life is busy. However, taking the time to set up a budget and plan preauthorized debits for saving now will end up saving you both time and energy in the long run.
5. Eliminate negative emotions about saving
Saving is hard and often causes feelings of having to “do without”. Automation helps remove those feelings with a conscious savings plan that you don’t have to think about. What’s more, once you’ve committed your savings and taken care of your bills every month, you can spend what’s left, guilt-free!
Take a small step today — log in to online banking on your computer, or the SCU mobile app on your smart phone and explore automatic transfers. Even committing a few dollars every payday will make a difference! When you’re ready, use our calculators to help you formalize your budget and really commit to paying yourself first. Your future self will thank you for it.
You can also try out our savings calculator to see how much more you could be saving overall:
