“Out of Sight, Out of Mind” Savings
This post was inspired by a post over at Frugal Dad - Quick and Easy Ways to Start a Savings Plan Today (sometimes I get the feeling I should just syndicate his site here and forget about writing my own posts 
)
The thing that really rung true in his post for me is the idea of setting up your savings so that they are still accessible, but they are “out of sight”. The example Frugal Dad used was an online bank account with ING Direct.
I have to confess I am terrible at saving. The only thing my wife and I have ever managed to save up for together was the deposit for our first house - and that was only because we were given a hard deadline (we were renting our house when we found out the owners were going to sell it - we offered to buy it by the end of our lease, and they agreed). Apart from this one time, I have never managed to create a decent savings account for any length of time. There’s always “something” that needs the money.
(Rather impressively, my wife has gotten the saving bug and saved up a nice sum of money for Christmas. I’m very proud of her, and hope I can learn a lesson or two from her!)
But as Frugal Dad pointed out, by making taking the money out of sight (ie: away from the usual bank accounts), you are less likely to spend the money.
Since deciding to take control of our finances again I have started doing that to a limited extent (by moving some money into a second account at our credit union, so it wasn’t linked to the debit card). But I’d never thought of using a totally different company, and investigating online-only accounts.
My number one priority at the moment is to get an emergency fund set up, so I may investigate this further. It definitely seems like a good idea!
Related posts:
- Keep The End Financial Goal In Mind
- Quick Tip - Learn Your Bank Fees
- Do You Have The Best Bank Account?
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Thanks for the mention! Feel free to mention my posts as often as you like, but whatever you do, don’t stop writing! Besides, how does the saying go? Great minds think alike. Have a great weekend!