Guest Post: The Best Way to Save Money Is Not Having It

By Bella Paige

TransferMate

If you can’t trust yourself with your own money, then you have a problem.

Let’s admit it – money is never enough even if we get a salary increase, bonuses, etc. Buying and consuming has become such an incredibly big part of our lives that we don’t really make the difference between a necessity and a shopping obsession anymore.

The problem is, I realized, shopping was swallowing most of my finances but I couldn’t help it as it was kind of a therapy after a long day at school and work. I was working really hard, but I was spending as hard, too.

It was time for a change because I didn't want to be like most of my friends with thousands of dollars in debt at the age of 22. So, I opened a savings account and was trying to put a certain amount there every month. Guess what – after a couple of months, I stopped doing it – negligence took over as I was too busy to go online and transfer money from my checking to my savings account. Another problem was, once the money was in my checking account, I had a hard time putting a certain amount aside because I could always figure out a thing to spend it on.

So, to protect my money, I had to trick myself.

I asked my employer to automatically deposit 10% from my monthly salary into my savings account and directly deposit the rest into my checking account. This way, the 10% was saved before it even came to me. If you don’t have it, you can’t spend it, and thus you can save it, right? It required more effort to go to the bank and withdraw from the savings, as well as go online and do the transaction from savings to checking in order to spend it. I successfully forgot about this 10% which, at the time, equaled $150/month. After a year, you can all figure what my savings grew up to – $1,800.

Honestly, I was proud of myself because I was never able to save that much on my own before. It might not look like an achievement to some, but to me it meant I was smarter than my slackness.