I finally took my bank's advice and set up automatic transfers

My branch manager at Chase kept telling me to automate my savings for over a year. I didn't listen and ended up with only $200 saved after 6 months. Now that I set up $50 weekly transfers, has anyone else found this way easier than manual saving?

3 comments

3 Comments

quinna891mo agoTop Commenter

$200 after six whole months? That's brutal man. I would've been panicking way sooner than that.

skyler_jackson271mo ago

Nah, I gotta disagree with the whole "automation is magic" thing. "Your brain just stops treating that cash as spendable" is exactly the problem. You're training yourself to not pay attention to where your money is going. That's how people end up with surprise overdraft fees or forgetting they even signed up for a subscription they don't use anymore. Manual saving forces you to look at your bank account, to feel a little pain when you transfer that money, and to actually think about your spending habits. If you can't save $200 in six months by choice, automating it isn't fixing the root issue, it's just hiding it under the rug.

rose_reed1mo ago

Heard a story from my coworker about how she tried manually saving for a year and barely had $300 to show for it. She switched to automatic transfers of $40 every paycheck and hit $1,200 in like 8 months without even noticing the money was gone. Honestly, once you automate it, your brain just stops treating that cash as spendable.