I got a question recently asking how can I save money when I don’t make much money? Today I want to share with you 4 No-Brainer Ways to Save Money (Even if You Have a Low Income).  It is important to save money for emergencies and to build wealth. We hear this all the time. The recommended amount to save is about $1,000 into your savings account for emergency funds for just things that come up that we have no control over. And I completely agree. There are plenty of books from Amazon you can read about the topic. I’m not always great at it, but I agree. And so I found some ways that are pretty easy for me to save money and I’m going to share them with you. 

Throughout this post there are a few affiliate links involved. This helps support RichSingleMomma.com and I really appreciate your support and so I hope that you will click the link and actually use the tools that I’ll be sharing with you.

Digit Automatic Savings App

 The first way is the Digit App. Now I love this app! This app helps you to save by withdrawing money from your account not a whole lot, because you could tell it how much to actually withdraw from your account. And it does it automatically for you daily. It could be small amounts of money. I currently have mine set to $5 a day. So that $5 a day will give me a pretty nice chunk at the end of the month. And the great thing about the app is you can set a goal and I think it’s really important to create a goal for your savings so you actually know where it’s going. 

Emergency Fund is such a blanket statement but let’s say you want to have an emergency fund but you really want to go on vacation, you really want to buy a car, or you really want to put money in a down payment for a house. You can do this with a Digit and then you could tell it how much to actually withdraw from your account. So even if you’re not making a lot of money, you can still have $1 a day taken out, right?  Everybody can do $1 a day, especially given the fact that we often eat out or get coffee, you get donuts or buy those little things from the $1 store. Just imagine if you put the money that you get by used to buy from the dollar store into your digital account, you’d be saving money.

So or you could challenge yourself and say, for every dollar I spend, I’ll save $1. Now, it may be limited to the Dollar Tree, or limited to a low cost thing. store that you actually use not maybe on groceries or rent or anything like that. Because again, this is money that we’re trying to save even if we’re not making an extremely large amount of money. So try the digit app. It is free in the app store and it’s in the Android Google Play Store. 

Automatic Savings Transfer

The next thing I want to share is the Automatic Transfer Savings method. So what is an automatic transfer? If you tell your bank to automatically transfer money from your checking to your savings every month, it’ll do it for you. You don’t even have to think about it, you just set it up. You can even create it as an automatic bill pay.

If you have a separate bank account, which I always recommend, I say never keep all your eggs in one basket. I’m kind of like a multi bank account junkie. I have bank accounts in several places. And that’s because I don’t like keeping all my eggs in one basket.  Go ahead and set up an automatic transfer to a separate savings account so that every payday or every month or however you want it to be you can have that money placed into your savings account.

If you open up a separate savings account, you can do that online. And there are several banks, and I’ll have them listed in the show notes, where you can actually open up a separate savings account that’s online. I use Capital One which is one bank you can use online. There’s Ally Bank, there’s several other ones as well. So choose a bank and then schedule a transfer of a certain amount from each paycheck to that account. So you don’t even have to think about it as just an automatic payment to yourself. Okay, so that’s how we want to think about savings, you’re actually paying yourself. 

Acorns Investment Savings Account

Next is Acorns which is kind of different, because it is not putting money into a savings account, but it’s actually putting money into an investment account. And the investment account is really for making money out of the money that you’ve placed in there.  So what Acorns does is round up your purchases and put it into the investment account. Now the investment account is set up in Acorns.

You have to download the app or go on the website, you have to decide your investments. So you can invest in a lot of different companies. And that’s basically what investing is, is investing in stocks in a certain company. So you actually own a part of that company. And when they make money, you make money. Simple of course, it feels complicated, especially if you listen to all the other financial gurus on MSNBC or CNBC or wherever. But it is a simple idea.  I would like for you to start investing now even if it’s just $1 a month, $5 a month, that investment will grow.

Do you want your money to grow? And that contributes to savings for you. So if Acorn again, when you go to the store, and let’s say your amount is $25.67 cents, well, the Acorn rounded up that change that was not spent 220 $7 to make $27, it’ll round that up and put that change into the investment account for you. Oh, that makes sense for you, but that’s what happens. So that’s a pretty good way to actually start investing on a small scale. And it makes a big difference in the long run, because that money can be used later on for your child’s college. If they decide to go to college, it could be used for down payment on a car. It could be used for several different things. 

Self Lender Credit Building Savings Account

The final thing I want to share with you is Self Lender. This is a different type of savings as well. It is not like the Acorns app but, it is a type of savings account that automatically withdraws $25 or more into a separate CD. A CD is a Certificate of Deposit for a bank. The money is saved into the account for you. The great thing about it is you get that money back in 24 to 48 months depending on the amount that you’ve allotted to be withdrawn from your account each month.  You’re actually saving for one or two years. So if you have if you’re putting in $25 a month, you get that money back in two years. Just think about the amount of money that has accumulated for you. You could get a lump sum check, which can then go into your own savings within your bank account because you got into the habit of saving money.  Let’s say you have a goal to put a down payment on a car or you want to move into a better home, you have that money ready for you. Even if you want a Christmas savings account, this would be a great option because of the savings you put into the Self Lender account you could have enough money for an amazing Christmas savings account. The perk of this is each payment is reported to the credit bureaus, which raises your credit score. This is so you have a two-fold purpose. First of all, you’re saving money. 

Second of all it is being reported to the credit bureau so your credit score goes up. You’re in a win-win situation so I don’t want to hear the excuse that you don’t have enough money to save. Actually you do because I just gave you four tools that you can use to save money for the thing that you need in your life. It’s possible to save with discipline, consistency, and developing an out of sight out of mind attitude about savings. I think an automatic savings program is the best way to go.  If you ever have heard of David Bach, he has this book called, The Automatic Millionaire. He pretty much goes through some similar ideas about how to save automatically so that you can begin to fund your retirement. You can fund anything in your life, if you just set it and forget it. I hope these ways to save have helped you. They are no-brainer ways to save money even if you have a low income. And for those of you who have a moderate to high income is even better, you can save even more. 

Send in your questions to the Single Mom Answers program. I love answering questions. It’s like one of my favorite things to do. And I will answer your questions and I hope that you will continue to listen to us, subscribe to the podcast channel, and that you will keep those questions coming. 

Online Banks:

• Capital One
• Ally Bank

Auto Savings Apps:

• Acorns
• Digit
• Self-Lender