We have two checking accounts in our household. One for household expenses like the mortgage, powerbill, etc. And another my husband uses exclusively for his gas since he expenses it every month (a major part of his job is driving).
Our local Credit Union offered to set it up on a Rainy Day Fund- where at the end of the day all the “change” (i.e. everything to the right of the decimal point) is pulled out of the checking account and put into a savings account.
We started this in November and have nearly $30 saved up! Now that may not seem like a lot but that’s $30 we wouldn’t have saved up otherwise. Plus it’s in the bank not attached to his debit card so it’s truly just sitting there earning interest. (Maybe not a lot but pennies add up!)
I’d strongly suggest asking your bank if they have a similar program. Some roundup every charge and put the extra into a savings account, others like mine, transfer the change each day. Either way you won’t usually feel those pennies daily but check the account at the end of the month and you should have hundreds (thousands?) of pennies waiting there!
If you are wanting to save more money check out a few of these posts:
Painless Ways to Add to your Savings Account
Buying Coffee out versus Making it at Home
Felicia S. says
My husband and I do a similar thing… We have a coin counter bank and everyday we put our “silver” in it. When it hits $50 we put it in a zippie bag and put in the safe! Doesnt take long to hit $50. All of our pennies go into a wine carraf until it’s full. We have been doing this for about a year with the goal of using all the change as spending money on our trip to Alaska this summer! Pretty close to $400 now!
Katherine says
We bank with Wells Fargo and they used to offer (not sure if it’s still available) a Way to Save program. Every time we swipe our debit cards, $1 is deposited into our checking. We don’t notice the dollars here and there but just last week we had a total of $20 transferred over to savings. Ends up being a nice chunk of change!
Katherine says
deposited from checking into savings…I worded some of that wrong 🙂