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It’s time for me to come clean, and be completely honest with you; I have trouble saving. Almost exactly a year ago, my wife and I made our final payment to our debt management program paying off $109,000 of credit card debt. With that final payment we freed up $2489 in our monthly budget. Having that extra breathing room we immediately did some things to better our overall financial picture such as consolidate some other debts and refinance our mortgage. But even after those changes were complete we still had a sizable amount of extra funds in our monthly budget.
We still find it difficult to save even with the extra funds available.
The problem is, there always seems to be something else to spend the money on. What I really need is some mechanism that forces our hand to save, without having to think about it, or take any action at all on my part. It would be even more outstanding if the money could be put somewhere that I couldn’t just make it instantly available with the click of a button. Automatically saved, put in a special place that is just a little inconvenient to access.
As it turns out, there’s a new service that does exactly what I just described.
The next big thing in effortless saving is called Digit, and it just might be poised to take the world by storm. Here’s how it works:
You take a few minutes and go through the super-easy setup process. You link the service with your checking account, and every few days Digit will analyze your spending and income and transfer a small sum of money to your digit savings account.
BAM, you’re saving money.
The service has a web page, but you can control the actions of the service through text messaging. Check on upcoming bills, temporarily pause the service if you need to keep your money right where it’s at, and even check the balance of your digit savings account.
I’m sure you’ve got some questions about all this, so let me take a care of a few of the most common:
- How much does the service cost? You have to know I wouldn’t be telling you about this if it wasn’t free, right? That’s right, it’s FREE.
- Does my money earn interest? No. That’s one of the only small downfalls I see in the service. This is how digit earns revenue. But think of it this way, how much have you saved on your own in the last 12 months? If your answer is a small number (like me), then foregoing interest on your savings may be worth having an actual balance in a savings account.
- Does it work with all banks? Digit can be used with 2500 different banks and credit unions, but there are some out there that just won’t work yet.
- I don’t live in the US, can I use Digit? Unfortunately not at this time. Keep your eyes open, though – they’re planning to go all international with savings!
- How can I access my money? You can request your money to be transferred back to your linked account at any time. It does take one business day for the money to return. This is exactly what I need. This delay would give me time to really think about whether I wanted to spend the money or not.
- What if they take out too much money? No worries, EOD nation, they have a no overdraft guarantee and will cover all costs incurred should that happen. As always, I recommend staying on top of your account balances and reconcile your account often.
Right now, the average saver wannabe can only request an invitation and get in line. But, because the readers of EOD are so financially savvy we get to bypass all of that and head to the front of the line. Just click here and head on over to Digit’s website and they’ll open the velvet rope just for you and let you walk right in.
What do you think, EOD nation, are you ready to start saving money?
I think this is a common problem. A big problem with not having enough saved is that if something comes up, you can end up back in debt again.
One thing that has helped us is keeping our savings in a different bank from our checking account. We also have it automatically deposited from our paychecks. We don’t even have a debit card for this account. As you said, it forces us to think about it before we drive over there to get money out. It gets easier over time, too. The first two or three months, we were stopping in quite often. (Sort of the way it is when you first start budgeting…) Now, we don’t even think about it. We’re not where we want to be yet, but we’re getting there.
Good luck!
I’m glad to hear it gets easier, Sassy Mamaw……I hope it does for us as well. 😉
You didn’t ask/answer the most important question: Is Digit a member of FDIC?
I have my savings on auto-pilot. I just set up automatic transfers, and they happen like clockwork. Also, GE Capital Bank is paying 1.05% on savings right now. Just sayin’. 🙂
That’s a great question, Petunia 100….I did some checking and All money saved is FDIC insured up to $250,000. Not earning any interest is certainly a downside….but as mentioned, if you have problems saving, having a non-zero balance is worth losing the 1%. Now, the hope would be eventually people can move those funds to an interest bearing account……that would be my strategy, anyway.
I was actually able to set up an automatic savings transfer for $100 a month (at minimum) with my bank a few years ago. It gave me an interest rate of 1.5% in my savings account for balances under $50,000. It’s not much but it sets that $100 aside each month at least. I jumped on the promo because of the interest rate.
Sounds like a great deal, Debt hater…..may your savings continue to grow by leaps and bounds! Thanks for stopping by!
I am actually pretty good at saving because there isn’t much I like more than having money to go on vacation and my ultimate vacation desire of being able to quit work by age 50. I did try to sign up for this because I thought it was cool, but my bank is one of those that isn’t compatable:(
Being able to go on vacation is a great motivator, Kim! That’s too bad that your bank isn’t compatible….try again in the future, I believe they’re expanding all the time!
How I save:
1. I save my change from most every cash purchase. It adds up! I must have saved over $1,000 that way over about 3 years.
2. I save any rebate or other such money I receive.
3. My credit union has a ‘ Change Jar’ program that links your debit card to your savings account. How that works: Say today I spend $5.10 at one place, and $10.13 at another. The Change Jar program sends 90 cents + 87 cents – Total $1.78 to my savings account. It rounds up from what you spend to the next dollar and sends that amount to savings. It only works with debit cards, not credit cards.
4. Every payday, I take as much as I can spare off the top of my pay and send it to savings. I try to do more than 10%. Some paydays it is 25%, others less than 10% because I had bigger expenses that month. But I always save something!
I’m a saving machine! Now if only I could stop being a spending machine! LOL!
Great ideas to save, MEL810! I like the “Change Jar” program….I actually wrote a post for a different site that outlined a similar way of saving money – but you have to round up the amount yourself. I’d love it if my bank did this automatically!
We’re not at the intensive saving stage yet, but it’s coming up, and I have reason to be nervous. In my own discretionary account, I have resolved more than once to build up savings for a large discretionary purchase. I have never succeeded in doing so. What’s with that? It’s like a compulsion to get down to zero. I sure hope I get over this before we’re debt-free. I think the answer for people like me lies in automatic, no-brainer savings.
I’m exactly the same way, Prudence….that’s why I’m very interested by this service. I haven’t signed up for it yet, but I’m definitely thinking hard about it!