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So if this is the first post you have ever read from me, I am a spender and I got it honestly from one of my parents who will not call out in this post. The interesting thing about it was I always felt guilty because my other parent a saver. Interesting combination right. Yeah, I know, and just for the record, my brother is naturally a saver like the other parent.
Since one of my parents was frugal I have been blessed to see some of the benefits of having money in your savings account and how they were not as stressed when unexpected expenses arise.
The experience that sticks out to me is when the motherboard on my brother's laptop went out during his Freshman year of college. The warranty was up and my brother didn't even ask for a new one. My parents discussed it and went out and brought him a new one. And just so you know my parents are the type that research the best brand, specs, and extras so it wasn't the base model. The fact that they were able to purchase a new top of the line laptop in 3 days without breaking a sweat was amazing to me.
When that happened, I was already saving money but not at the level my parents or the should I say the saver parent was. When I questioned my saver parent about it, they said, “that's why I save so I can do these things without thinking twice.”
At that time, I had a decent sized savings but it was dwindling quickly due to home repairs and I was not actively building it back up at that moment (I was saving money but I could have been saving a lot more to build the account back up).
Our conversation made me realize that I needed to set up a system to save more without actively saving.
Here is how I save as a natural spender.
The first thing I did was create a new budget, I needed to see how much more I could allocate to saving in addition to what I was already doing.
The next thing I did was increase my contribution percentage on my 401k. I was contributing more than the match but I realized I could contribute more and reduce my taxable income (the Accountant in me is always looking for tax benefits).
Now it was time to allocate more money to my emergency fund. I increased the amount I had direct deposited to my savings each paycheck. At that time my direct deposit was sent to 3 accounts: my savings, the bills account, and my fun money account. In order to increased the amount I was saving each month, I decided to decrease my fun money allowance. I chose to reduce my fun money account because I was not spending all of it anyway, I just liked the option to spend it if I wanted to.
To keep my hand out of my savings, the savings account that receives my direct deposit is not at my bank. Why? Because it makes it hard to access the money. So I check the balance but I am not touching that account unless it is an absolutely necessary which why I have multiple savings accounts.
I set up a portion of my paycheck to go directly to my Capital One 360 account and that is where I save the majority of my emergency fund.
Check out my Digit & Qaptial Reviews
I also have a Digit account and a Qapital account. Both the Digit and the Qapital account are automatically deducted from my checking account based on my spending habits, rules, and set goals. I save for fun items in these accounts, such as personal trips or something I want that is more expensive so I set a goal for it and when I hit the goal amount, I go and get what I want.
Most people are surprised to hear I have all of these savings accounts (the rest are jointly held) and please know that you don't have to be like me and open up multiple savings accounts, it can be overwhelming for some but it helps me save for multiple reasons.
What I want you to take from this is that you can save as a spender, you just have to make it work for you.
Just so you know, a few years ago I was asking my spender parent questions about money (I wanted to know the spender parents money mindset) and I found out that spender parent does automatically save too. So like I said earlier, I got it honest.
Are you a natural spender, how do you save money?
