What are your best squirrelling money away techniques?

[YourCalmRoseCat]

It’s a new financial year and I want to try and get better at saving. What little tricks and systems do you use to quietly build up savings? Not so much strict budgeting but things like moving money out of sight, automatic transfers, any little habits that make saving easier. Basically anything that helps you save without overthinking it?

Round ups and monthly or weekly deposits into S&S ISA. Last year I did the 1p savings thing on Monzo. Those money jars that you can’t open for £2 coins. Anything I happen to sell/win I put at least double the amount onto a Revolut card in foreign currency for holiday spends.

I use plum and Emma apps. They do loads of different things and save for me. I moved the plum app off of my Home Screen so I can forget about it. I looked after a few months and I had £1000! Was a nice surprise.

Monthly standing order into a second current account. When there's a reasonable amount, stick it in a S&S ISA.

Just don't spend money you don't have too and put it in a savings account.

Anything over at the end of the month into premium bonds / isas.

If you don't have a cash ISA open one. I think Etoro are offering the best rate ATM. Put a regular amount away every month by direct debit. Do round up so any bills you pay get rounded up to nearest £/£5/£10 and put into savings account. Don't forget to use a site like Topcashback to buy things online. It all mounts up. I get £200 per year. I buy all insurance and I ternet packages through them. Save your supermarket points until Xmas then you spend a bit less.

I save money as soon as it comes in instead of waiting to see what's left. The 'if it's not there, I can't spend it' mentality works better for me. I also have a second bank account just for bills so I know that money is there and not available for spending. It makes it really easy to see what's left for doing stuff with the kids/buying things we all want/need

Monzo pots for different things - holidays, Xmas, car expenses etc. it’s taken me years to get better at managing my money but this really helps.

Get your salary paid into a savings account (one you don’t have a debit card for).

Then, have your mortgage and bills set as standing orders from one dedicated additional account, for these payments only. Transfer the amount needed to cover these as soon as you get paid your salary, plus £100 buffer each month.

After this payment, then transfer X amount to an ISA each month. Then, any remaining money is left over to you for the rest of the month. Transfer that into a Monzo. You can also use Monzo pots and do some separate transfers into these each month, to allow money to accrue for different purposes (eg holidays/ Christmas).

Basically, ‘pay yourself first’ (your bills, your buffer money in your bills account, and additional money into your ISA).

All my bills (insurance, phone, internet, electricity etc) are all set to monthly and immediately after payday.

Savings also to savings account on payday.

Anything left by next payday moves to savibgs account.

Never buy anything big/expensive until bank holiday weekend if I can help. It usualy saves 10-20% due to sale or discount code.

Standing order on payday into a savings account.
You treat what is left as your net income - in the same way many (most?) people don't know what their monthly gross income is (before tax, NI, student loan where applicable, pension payments) - we tend to know what our net income is.

Of course, you can take an amount out if you need it at the end of the month, but it feels like a bigger decision to spend that money if you are taking it out of savings.

Another is to never buy a new gadget / clothes / other 'treat' on the day you first see it. Put it in the basket and come back to it two or three days later and see if you still really "need" it.

I divide my money into different pots, they are in my banking app. Then I pay say for petrol, from my current account and transfer that from the pot back into my account. It's great, really made me think about what I spend. Anything left in the different pots at the end of the month goes into my ISA.

My Gran used to put £10 notes in-between the pages of books. After she died we found loads of old £10 notes in books and Mum had to take them to the bank.

Each month within 5 mins of being paid I have about 60 quid left in my account.

I pay money into several Monzo pots for annual expenses like Xmas ,bdsys and so on ..

Car insurance , car tax...i pay into premium bonds. Stocks ISA and sipp.

It all works and builds up slowly

I have a complicated purse and put money in a hidden section there until I forget about it.
Put my two free council tax months into a savings account, but you’ll have to wait 10 months for that now.
Backpay and Nationwide bonuses go into the same savings account.
Use Monzo pots for your sinking fund savings.
Don’t use shopping as a hobby, pastime, or something to do on a rainy day.
Don’t go sales shopping unless you have a list of what you need - NEED, not WANT.

£4 a week goes into my LISA by direct debit so I get an extra £1 bonus rounding it up to a fiver. It's not loads but I don't even notice it going out.

Use a gift card app which gives cashback to pay for supermarket shops and any other shopping at parcipating shops. It takes moments to do this at the checkout and adds up to a few hundred extra a year on money you were spending anyway

Any discounts, money off vouchers/codes on purchases get transferred over to a saving account. So I technically pay the full price but keep the savings for my rainy day fund.

Money left in the account on the day before payday, also get transferred over to the savings account.

Premium bond winnings are set to buy more bonds. When I reach the limit I’ll change the nominated account to my savings account.

Oh a new pot is called " teeth ".

I save all my work travel expenses including parking into a separate account - usually comes to somewhere between £3k and £5k
If I have any money left at end of month on top of what I put away in savings ( not always ) that goes into my ISA

Like a few others, I save x amount as soon as I get paid (‘pay yourself first’). For me it’s been life changing.

I’m at the maximum amount now but saving into my Premium Bonds helped motivate me to buy bonds because of the ‘raffle ticket’ aspect (the more bonds you have the more likely you are to win prizes). I also like the fun of the monthly draw.

Things I do are:

• pay myself first (so try and put something away every month-I really appreciate not everyone is able to do this though, and I often have to take the money back)
• use TopCashback
• try to find discounts for everything
• Use Money Box round ups
• use Chase and divvy up money into different accounts (Christmas, holidays, house stuff etc)
• when I was really skint and trying to save I used the envelopes system. Basically paid for what I could with direct debit, then gave myself a certain amount each month for food and spends. I split that into 4 envelopes (one for each week). Really made me think about what I really needed!! I’m sure it’s based on a named person/system.
• I also put all spare change (everything over 50p) into a tin that you need an opener to get to. It adds up!

It’s really boring but I’ve hugely increased my pension contributions. It’s the most tax efficient way of saving, it’s gone before I can even count it as mine and I can’t get at it (for a good while).

I’ll put my annual pay rise in there too.

My friends employer lets her split her wages into 2 bank accounts they do 2
payments so she puts £150 a month into a separate account and never misses it as her main wages go to her main bank account.
i think this is a really good idea

I gave done this too and added the equivalent of any direct debits I've cancelled to my pension contributions so my outgoings are the same but the money is redeployed