[faebi]

For me the simplest solution is to have a second bank account I never take money from. Then every time I get my salary a certain amount gets moved to the savings account. I do not miss money I never really had. Additionally some days before my salary all my money above a certain threshold gets also moved to the savings account, so that I have the same money every month, even when I spent less. Also I have my I am poor level. When I have less than 1000Fr/$ I cut my spending to very basic things like food only. This protects me from depth and touching my savings.

All of this is easily possible in nearly any bank in Switzerland, I am not shure about the US or other parts of the world. Hope I could create some inspiration.

[faebi]

Also wanted to say, its important that all of that happens automatic, so that I do not need to decide whether its right to do so or not. It should be like taxes, forced on me.

[W0lf]

Hey, I pretty much have the same setup you've described except the second money transfer if your current account balance is above a given threshold. How did you solve this? Do you use a special tool for this such as MoneyMoney for example? (This is what I'm currently using for dealing with my bank accounts)

[faebi]

Actually my bank/ebanking offered this feature. It also works opposite, so as example if you have less than 1000$ it will automatically move money from a certain account to this account.

[e12e]

[Not op, but:] It's kind of sad, the bank I'm using is constantly looking for engineers to "help create the future of banking" (or maybe that was a sibling bank - they're both constantly after engineers) - and yet neither have something as basic as a programmable api to do check balances and do transfers between accounts...

As I've finally gotten to a better cash flow (making a bit more, cutting/reducing some regular expenses, paying off some high-interest short-time debt), I'm experimenting with some new saving strategies (although the amount is still very small).

I have one tiny transfer that goes out of my account every day to another bank that has a small positive interest (a whooping 1.8% - which I guess is +/- zero wrt. inflation) - a "savings" account. As far as I can figure out, this only goes out on business days, and sometimes it gets canceled due to my regular account being empty. My general plan is to from time to time, when/if I have some excess cash, calculate what "should" be there (amount * current-day-of-year) and transfer the difference (The interest is a rounding error).

It's kind of interesting to turn savings on its head like this, and fun to see how "much" one can save, if you multiply that amount by 365 days. You could call it "a latte a day consumer saving", because you can quickly save enough to avoid buying one electronic gizmo on credit a year (ie: last generation phone, medium range laptop etc).

Well, ok a good regular size latte in Norway will likely set you back ~5 USD. But I suppose in the US people would go and get a latte that's three times the size for a similar price[1].

The other experiment I'm doing, is transferring a similarly sized sum, but scaled up to weekly deposits, that go into a somewhat high-risk fund (more or less the closest I could find to a technology index fund - low fees, but probably overall worse than an actual index fund). It comes to a little more over the course of a year, and hopefully over time will see ~5% interest - although that is certainly uncertain.

It looks like I'll be moving to a new job/location - with higher pay and less expenses, so I'll have to try to do an evaluation and see what I do with my "excess" cash. I'll probably save as much as I can for a year, and then see how close I am to being able to simply pay the rest of my debt (low interest government-backed student loans).

They're a little different from other debt, in that they are personal, and come with some insurance in case of unemployment or disability.

[1] http://www.fastfoodmenuprices.com/starbucks-prices/

[AlwaysRock]

I created a second bank account as soon as I went to college because I was too lazy to balance a checkbook. Now I actually have three accounts. Savings account for long term savings that 20% of my salary is deposited, a checking account where my rent is drawn from, and another checking account for general use where 80% of my salary is deposited.

It's probably not the best system but It's nice to have it all separated. It's a process if I'm going to take money out of savings and transfer it to my checking account so It makes me think twice on large purchases.

[cjcenizal]

This is a great strategy, and I use it too. I've heard it referred to as "paying yourself first" since you're treating your future self as your #1 creditor.

[the_watcher]

I'm in the US, and this has been this single biggest factor in changing my finances. Move things out of accounts you have easy access to automatically, use that as an emergency fund and the source of any debt payments. Then just focus on your main account as your "available balance"

[ivanyv]

This. I'd love to be able to actually have dozens of "virtual" accounts that use a single account so I could keep track of what everything is for, but just having a separate account that I can't easily take money from works wonders.

[Adeohluwa]

this has been the most helpful for me so far.