Save money faster with Online Banking
One of the key principles of personal wealth-building is “pay yourself first.” It means contributing to your savings account first when you get paid, before you cover your bills or do any other spending. This prioritizes your future financial goals by making savings contributions happen first before anything else when you get paid.
Pay yourself first
CU SoCal’s Online Banking has a tool to make “paying yourself first” happen automatically so you don’t need to think about it. Using the “Transfer” widget under the “Transfer and Pay” heading in Online or Mobile Banking, you can schedule a set amount from your checking account (or from whatever account receives your direct deposit paycheck) to automatically transfer to one or more savings accounts at set intervals. When you get paid, you’ll have the peace of mind knowing that your savings allocation will be tucked away on auto pilot.
When it comes to determining how often to set up automatic savings transfers, Online Banking offers quite a few choices to make the process easy: daily, weekly, every two weeks, semi-monthly (1st and 15th), every four weeks, monthly, end of month, quarterly, every six months, annually, and every other month. Whew! That’s a lot of choices. We recommend syncing your automatic savings transfers to your paycheck cycle so that your contributions happen as soon as possible after you get paid.
Track Spending and Goals
Another Online Banking tool we recommend to help save is the “Track Spending and Goals” widget under the “Tools” heading. This widget tracks your spending by category from any of your CU SoCal accounts based on merchant codes (such as restaurants, groceries, entertainment, etc.) so you can see where your money is going.
The “Track Spending and Goals” widget also allows you to set savings goals with an end date and tracks your progress. Let’s say you’re saving for a new phone that costs $500, and you want to save $100 a month as a portion of your overall savings to go toward the phone. Use the widget to set a $500 Phone Savings Goal with an end date five months out, and every month “add” $100 to your goal. This doesn’t create a new savings account, but rather lets you know when a savings amount that’s been earmarked for a special purpose within your savings account has been reached.
Setting a goal is a great way to build savings discipline by working toward your goal incrementally and allowing you to spend the money guilt free knowing you carefully planned the purchase.
If you aren’t already enjoying the benefits of Online Banking, simply register for Online Banking or download the CU SoCal Mobile Banking App.
