How to Save More, Automatically

By Althea Chang, staff writer at MainStreet.com

You know you should, but it's difficult to feed the piggy bank every time you get paid. Luckily, new bank accounts and the power of automatic savings plans may make it easier. And every little bit counts, after all.

Simple Savings

"Saving is a whole lot simpler when you don't have to think about it," says a Bank of America (BAC Quote) marketing campaign (Stock Quote: BAC) for its Keep the Change program. With every purchase you make with your Bank of America check card, your purchase amount is rounded up to the nearest dollar, and the difference is deposited into a savings account. Bank of America also says it will match your savings for the first three months after you enroll in the program and match 5% per year after that, up to $250.

If you have a Wachovia, now part of Wells Fargo(WFC Quote) checking account (Stock Quote: WB), you can open a Way2Save account. Each time you make a purchase with your check card, pay a bill online or set up an automatic debit from your checking account, $1 will be transferred from your checking account to your Way2Save account, which gets a guaranteed APY of 5% for the first year, plus they'll add on 5% of the amount you've saved. You can also set up automatic transfers of up to $100 a month, from your checking account to your Way2Save account. ...