It is no secret that having a savings account is important. However, actually finding the money to put in the savings account can be a challenge for many people! Here are several creative ways to add to your savings account.
Creative Ways to Add To Your Savings Account
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1. Use your computer to generate some extra income.
My daughter did jobs on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk while she was in school. You do various tasks for money. It doesn’t pay a lot but it’s something you can do from home when you have time. Your payments go into your Amazon Payments Account and you can either link that account to a checking account to transfer your money or use your money on Amazon purchases.
Also, everyone in my family does Swagbucks (referral link). You can cash out for PayPal or for all kinds of gift cards (I usually cash out for Home Depot and Dominos). There are lots of ways to earn points with Swagbucks on their site. They have a Daily Poll, print & use coupons for groceries, videos to watch for points, surveys for points and Shop Earn just to name a few ways to earn with Swagbucks. The easiest way to earn though is to use their app on your Kindle or Smartphone and watch the movie trailers since they can run while you do something else.
Bing (referral link) also has a rewards program. You get points for searching on your computer or phone and cash out for gift cards
Use the cash you free up by using these programs and add to your savings account!
2. Round up your purchases.
Anytime you buy something, round up the purchase and put the difference into your savings. You can do this on your own, or see if your bank offers such a program when you use your debit card. You will be amazed at how fast the rounding up can add up.
3. Stash away your change.
This is an old tip but a tried and true one. At the end of the day, empty your pocket and purse of all change. At the end of the month, take the change to the bank and cash it in or use a Coin Star machine in the grocery store. Then, simply take the money and place it in your savings.
4. “Cash” in your coupons.
When you use coupons on your groceries, make note of how much money you saved. Then, take that amount in cash and put it in savings. For example if you redeem $10 in coupons, place $10 in cash in your savings.
5. Sell your clutter.
Comb through the clutter in your home and see what can be sold. List your kid’s clothing, movies, electronics, books, and other odds and ends on your local Facebook garage sale page, eBay or Craigslist for cash. Then, stash away your earnings.
6. Stash away windfalls.
When you get a cash gift, tax return, a rebate or a refund, of any kind, don’t consider it a windfall that needs to be spent. Instead, take it directly to your savings account. There is no point in letting it burn a hole in your pocket when you can instead save it for a rainy day.
7. Challenge your family.
Invite your family to join in on the savings fun. Challenge them to try and save a specified amount each week, then put this amount in savings. Having everyone on board is a great way to find success.
8. Go on a spending freeze.
Go on a spending freeze for a weekend, a week, or a month (start with the weekend if you’re not used to doing this and work your way up). That means unless it is a necessity, it doesn’t get purchased. Necessities would include food, gas, housing, and utilities. See how much you can save by not spending for one week. You can then take the cash you freed up and put it into saving.
Building your savings doesn’t have to be a challenge. Hopefully a few of these ideas will work for you and you’ll have a healthier looking savings account in no time!
How do you come up with money to put in savings?
This post contains affiliate links, which means that I may earn a small commission from some of the links in this post. Please see our Disclosure Page for more information.
You might also be interested in: How to Include Savings in Your Budget Without Breaking the Bank
I need to have my daughter check out number one! I save money by ‘hiding’ it in our checking account. Out of sight, out of mind!
LOL! I do the same thing! It’s my own version of overdraft protection.
Your tips for savings are great. We do rewards with American Express that we cash in for gift cards, and when I have time I do surveys for points that I can redeem for gift cards/pay pal. But for immediate savings we keep a change jar where we put all of our change & I always balance my checkbook in whole numbers rounded up…. It makes a huge difference! Most importantly, before I pay a single bill I immediately transfer a specified amount to savings so that it is covered first.
Hope all is well,
Jennifer
Great tips! We budget $100 per week for gas, but prices have been so low recently that we have been spending about half that amount. So we have just been immediately transferring the savings to our savings account. It is amazing how quickly it has added up! We still budget the $100 in case prices go up again and I am sure they will! But for now the savings is nice.
Oh you know those prices will be going up again! But it has been really nice to be able to save a bit on gas since food seems to be much higher lately.
Hi Jennifer!
We do the American Express gift cards too since my husband has a work issued one. We linked that account to ours so we get lots of points each month since he travels quite a bit and uses it for that. I think we pay $40 a year to have his business account linked to our personal account.
I’ve heard it said that whatever you spend your money on is what you are investing it in. When I consider a purchase, I ask myself, “is the payoff worth it?” I can pick up an item and easily put it back down when I think about my money this way. Also, I view my money as a powerful tool that I can use to further my goals. I don’t make a lot, but I can sure stretch it!
I’m going to look more in to Amazon’s Mechanical turk and see if that is something I can do. thanks for the tip.
We have done a no spend January and it is amazing how much you can save in a month!
All great tips!
Great tips! I had not heard of the Amazon Turk program. Thanks for sharing. Stopping by from Thrifty Thursday link party. Have a great day!
Great tips. Thank you for sharing 🙂
These are great tips. With tight finances it can be hard to find extra money to put into savings…I have started dumping anything extra towards savings and debt as well as started an automatic draft of $10 each pay period. $10 doesn’t sound like much but it has definitely added up over time.
I love Swagbucks! It’s such a great way to build up Amazon gift cards. We’ve been able to buy things we want without feeling guilty about spending.
These are great ideas, I like the putting extra we save “into savings”, I may have to use this but put the “extra” and round ups into our debt budget. We are trying to pay off all of our debt before we work on saving any more, and this is one great way to help with that. I also love the idea of a spending freeze, we are on a grocery spending freeze at the moment (outside of essentials like milk and eggs, sorry we use a lot of both in our house, and eggs are less than beef) and it is going well. Maybe in a few more months I can convince the hubby to go on a complete freeze!
I like the idea of cashing in your coupons, since in theory you would have spent that much anyways. Thanks for posting. Hello from Thrifty Thursday.