5 Tools and Strategies That Can Help You Build Your Savings Habit

What are your financial goals? Do you plan to build an emergency fund, save for retirement, or pay off your children’s school fees? Are you perhaps dreaming of buying a car or a house? Having sufficient savings is key to achieving these financial goals.

As important as it is to address all your current needs and expenses, it’s also crucial to set aside some money so that you can both achieve your aspirations and have a safety net for any curveballs that life decides to throw at you.

Thankfully, there are plenty of resources that can help you begin and maintain a savings plan. Here are a few tools and strategies you can try out for yourself so that you can grow your savings more consistently.

1. Open Separate Savings Accounts

Having all your money in a single bank account can sometimes tempt you into spending the “extra” cash you have. After all, it’s much harder to deny yourself when you look at your account and see funds to spare. The downside of this is that it slows your saving progress and brings you farther away from any financial goals you want to accomplish.

The solution? Open separate savings accounts that will hold all your extra funds for specific goals. “Out of sight, out of mind” is a popular saying that applies perfectly to this strategy; if you can’t see how much you’ve saved, you’re much less likely to spend it on an impulse purchase. EastWest offers both a regular savings account or a passbook savings account that allow you to easily keep track of your transactions and keep your savings separate from your funds earmarked for bills and necessities.

2. Find Expenses to Cut Back On

You probably have plenty of daily expenses that you can cut back on to save more money. This applies to any non-essentials, such as dining out, buying hobby items, or even keeping entertainment subscriptions. You can limit these expenses without having to cut off all forms of recreational spending from your budget.

For example, if you enjoy buying a drink from your favorite coffee shop every day, you can opt to do it every other day or make coffee at home more frequently. If you love going out with friends look for low-cost or free events that you can go to instead.

3. Use a Budgeting Tool

One of the most useful resources you can take advantage of when building a saving habit is a budgeting tool. A budgeting tool helps you track expenses and ensure you’re not overspending. , There are plenty of tools to explore, such as budgeting apps, online spreadsheet templates, and the classic pen and paper method. Once you find the method that works for you, break your monthly expenses down into categories. These categories may include rent, bills, groceries, and recreational spending. Then, set reasonable limits for each one. It’s important to consider your savings as a monthly expense, and it’s best to allocate funds to it first when you receive your pay so that you can work around the limitations of your remaining funds.

4. Sign Up for Membership Cards

If you’re a loyal consumer of certain shops, such as grocery stores, department stores, and restaurants, then it’s often worth signing up for a membership card offered by these establishments.These cards allow you to earn points for every purchase you make, which you can then save and use until you’re able to use them in exchange for a free product or as a cash equivalent. It’s a small action that can contribute to your savings in the long run, since you’re able to occasionally obtain freebies or discounts from your favorite shops.

5. Use a Mobile Banking App

Managing funds in your bank account has never been easier thanks to mobile banking applications. The features included in banking apps are useful tools that can help you build your savings more easily. You can use them to automatically pay bills, track your expenses and transactions, and transfer funds from one account to another with just a few taps and swipes.

EastWest’s EasyWay app boasts an intuitive design and enhanced security for their clients’ ease of use and safety. It also offers useful features such as streamlined bill payments, mobile check deposit, a card lock/unlock feature, and even its own rewards system for transactions.

Use EastWest to Help You Build Your Savings Habit

Your bank should be your biggest ally when building your savings, providing plenty of resources and options to help set you up for a more financially-secure future. EastWest can easily set you up for financial success with a savings account that offers reliable security, competitive interest rates to help you save even further, and an accompanying passbook to help you track your expenses and transactions.