In this episode of Your Money Playbook, Coach Kate shares practical strategies for making saving easier through automation. From direct deposit savings and recurring transfers to digital envelope budgeting and Round Up for Impact, they explain how small, consistent actions can help build financial security without feeling deprived.

0:00:05.5 Lynne Jarman-Johnson: Welcome in. It’s Your Money Playbook. We have Rachel from Grand Rapids who has a great question, one of my favorite topics that we have here, and it’s savings, automated savings. We’ve got Coach Kate here with us. Let’s hear from Rachel.

0:00:21.7 Rachel: Hey, guys. This is Rachel from Grand Rapids calling in. Love listening to your podcast, and I’m hoping that you guys can help me out a little bit. So recently I got promoted at work, which has been great because we have more money coming in, and that kind of got me thinking that I probably should be saving more. I have three kids; they’re getting closer to college. We would like to pay for it or pay for some of it so they’re not really in debt or anything when they get out of it. However, the challenge is that I love to shop and my husband’s hobby is boating. So obviously these can be expensive things, and we’re having a tough time saving consistently without feeling like we’re giving up the things that we enjoy. So, I guess a few of my questions that I’m hoping you guys could answer for me was, does automatically moving money into savings really work? Are there ways to save for the future without feeling like every dollar’s already spoken for? And how do you balance enjoying your money today while still making progress toward big goals down the road? Thank you.

0:01:15.8 LJJ: Rachel, these are amazing questions, and the reason why is because I like to say, set it and forget it. Let’s see what Coach Scott has to say.

0:01:26.3 Coach Scott: Want to save without lifting a finger? Let’s talk about automating your savings. If you get paid by direct deposit, here’s a smart move. Send $50 from each paycheck straight to savings. If you’re paid biweekly, that’s $1,300 a year without even noticing. No direct deposit? No problem. Set up a recurring transfer, say $25 every week. That’s $1,300 a year, too. Want to supercharge your savings? Try roundups. Buy a coffee for $3.25, it rounds to $4. That extra 75 cents goes to savings. Let’s say you make 10 purchases a week with an average roundup of 50 cents. That’s $5 a week or $260 a year just from spare change. Once it’s set up, your savings grows quietly in the background while you live your life. Whether it’s for a rainy day, a vacation or building better habits, automation makes it easy. Want to learn more? Let us know. Consumers, your team to count on.

0:02:26.0 LJJ: Scott said supercharge. We’ve got our super Coach Kate here to go a little bit more in depth on what Rachel’s questions are. Boy, they’re deep, and I love it. Her focus on balance in life, the set it and forget it, how important is that?

0:02:41.1 Coach Kate: It’s so important. We’re all busy. We have families that we’re raising, we’re trying to budget, and it can be so challenging, especially with the economy and everything costing more. Housing, gas, food. How do we make ends meet? It’s a challenge. And to not be able to maybe take the time to do that budget and have a system that does it for you is so important.

0:03:01.4 LJJ: So in our online banking, I like to call them digital envelopes. We hear talk of envelope system where people will put money into envelopes physically, and that can be, that could lead to theft potentially. So this online component of digital envelopes, which is really what automated systems and savings is all about.

0:03:25.3 Coach Kate: Absolutely. You can separate your finances, have it automatically transferred to each individual envelope or account the way you want it to, and just have that budget set for you.

0:03:34.1 LJJ: And can you call the accounts anything you want?

0:03:36.7 Coach Kate: Absolutely. You can nickname them literally anything you want.

0:03:39.8 LJJ: When Rachel called in, she’s talking a lot about life and coming at you fast, right? And she did mention balance. That really is important when you’re looking at it, because what happens if you’re not saving and all of a sudden you’re living paycheck to paycheck? What does that do for you as stress level?

0:03:59.5 Coach Kate: Oh, it probably creates so much stress. And if you’re not paying attention to it and you’re not saving for those unexpected events, you could find yourself in a situation where you just don’t know what to do.

0:04:10.0 LJJ: We love to talk about emergency savings first. Why is that?

0:04:14.9 Coach Kate: Because I think you never know what to expect when the unexpected occurs, right? So if you don’t have something set aside for those emergency events, what can you do? It’s good to prepare and just make sure that you’re comfortable no matter what happens in life.

0:04:30.6 LJJ: One of the things that I really like about our online banking is the fact that you can create all of these different, we call them sub-accounts, they’re savings accounts, and you can hide them if you’d like so that you’re not seeing what the dollars are in there at this juncture. And then all of a sudden, if you do have an emergency, that money is already set aside and you’re not worried about that.

0:04:53.0 Coach Kate: Absolutely, yes.

0:04:54.2 LJJ: Tell us a little bit about when you’re setting up those accounts, that automation part. Is it easy to do, and can you automate different accounts and different monies going in different places so that you’re not even thinking about it?

0:05:06.6 Coach Kate: You can set up automatic transfers from your direct deposit, so if you wanted to have it not even hit your checking account, you don’t even see the money. Or you could set up a transfer from any of your accounts with us to any other accounts, and you could label those transfers so you know what they’re for.

0:05:22.1 LJJ: And then what you’re really doing is zeroing in on keeping your budget, and then all of a sudden that really does lift that fear that you have of, uh-oh, something just might have happened, or I really want to make sure Christmas is the best this year, any holiday that you’re celebrating and maybe spending a little bit more money than you should.

0:05:42.6 Coach Kate: Yeah, you could also set up different accounts for your kids and label them with their names and just put money away for them, too, and hide those so that you know they have a savings account started for when they’re ready to open their first bank account.

0:05:53.6 LJJ: Coach Kate, we’ve been talking a lot about automated savings. Now we have a program that’s called Round Up for Impact that is a very fun, unique program for savings.

0:06:03.0 Coach Kate: Yeah, it’s amazing, and I think something people may have heard about from other places. If you go through a drive-through and they ask if you’d like to round up your purchase to the nearest dollar and then they give it to a charity that they’re supporting in the community. Well, we can do that, too. We have so many core charities that we work with, but we can also have you round up that dollar directly into your savings account.

0:06:23.9 LJJ: You know, I actually have it set up so it’s half and half. Half goes into my savings and half goes into the charity that I chose. You can do both.

0:06:31.3 Coach Kate: You absolutely can do both. And how many people are going to go into a place and spend that change that they have, right? You might as well have it automatically going into your savings or to your charity of choice.

0:06:41.7 LJJ: Great idea. And we love the fact that let’s say someone is listening right now and they’re like Rachel and lots of things are happening, coming at them fast. How important is it that they know that they can come and talk with any of us to really get on the right track and be open and not be afraid to talk about money?

0:07:01.3 Coach Kate: Yeah, that’s what we’re here for. We are here to coach you through any phase of life, through any financial challenge. We want to help you make the most of your money, and we want to help make your money make you money.

0:07:12.9 LJJ: Oh, I like that. Your money make you money. Let’s make that happen. Rachel had such great questions, and now it’s time for our Money Playbook three tips. Kate, what are the three tips we can offer Rachel and all of our listeners?

0:07:26.5 Coach Kate: Three tips to consider always: direct deposit, automatic transfer, and don’t forget to round up.

0:07:33.3 LJJ: That is just as easy as it is. Love it. Hey, thank you so much for calling in, Rachel. And if you would like a topic addressed by Coach Kate or all of our coaches, we’d love to answer them. 269-213-3360. And that is your Money Playbook.