Everyone wants to save money, but some people don’t have the discipline to “pay themselves first”. If you don’t balance your checkbook or put away a set amount of money with each paycheck, then SavedPlus might be a simple solution to help you save money without having to change your habits.
The way it works is simple. You choose a savings percentage between 5-20% that you want to save with every purchase you make. Then as you spend, that extra percentage gets moved from your checking to savings account. So, if you set your percentage to 10% and go to the grocery store and spend $75, an extra $7.50 will be moved to your savings account. You can change the percentage from the mobile app or web site whenever you’d like as well as check your account balances and set up goals.
To keep you from pulling too much from your checking, you can also set up a maximum transaction amount so that it doesn’t save an extra 5% of that new flat screen purchase as an example. In addition, you can choose to exclude single transactions if you want. To keep you from overdrawing your account, you can also set up a minimum balance for your checking account so that it stops transferring money if your balance gets too low.
In order to use this service, you give your checking and savings account information along with your debit and credit card info so it can catch all of your transactions and move the money from your checking to savings. How much does it cost to use this service? Nothing. It’s free. You don’t have to open any accounts with them since they use the accounts you already have.
For those of you who balance your checking account and keep close tabs on what you spend, this may not be for you. It would drive me crazy to try to keep track of the extra transactions. But for those who keep track of what is in their checking account by just looking at the balance occasionally, then this may be a perfect way to starting putting away some extra money for a rainy day or retirement.
For more information, you can check out their site, the FAQs, and the How It Works page.
Potential Savings: I haven’t personally used this service, but it seems to be getting some attention. According to their website, average users save $350 a month or $4200 a year. That’s quite a bit of coin for not having to change your habits.