Welcome to A Dollar A Day, where every day we'll dish out creative and quirky ways to save on your living expenses.
We know it's tough to save, especially when debt is hovering over your head. But not having emergency savings means you're one unplanned expense away from a financial nightmare.
The Simple Dollar has one suggestion to make saving easy: Automatically transfer a portion of your checking account into a savings account on a weekly basis.
You'll need a savings account that's specifically designated for emergency savings. This money should be off limits and only used as a last resort. The Simple Dollar recommends keeping this savings account at a different bank from where the rest of your money is kept, to avoid the temptation of dipping into the cash.
It doesn't have to be a large chunk of money -- maybe $10 a week at the start, suggests The Simple Dollar. Your emergency fund isn't going to make you rich. It's there for paying an unexpected cost like repairing a leaky roof or replacing your car's battery.
From The Simple Dollar:
Once you have your account and the automatic transfer is set up, just be vaguely mindful of it. Don’t let your checking account balance get low enough so that the automatic transfer has any danger of causing you to overdraft. Aside from that, just forget about the emergency fund.
Of course, the last thing you want is to incur overdraft fees for saving your own money. We recommend downloading a mobile banking app that allows you to see all of your accounts at once -- Mint and Pageonce allow you to do this. Also, set up email notifications that warn you when your account balance is low.
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