[EHadden]

Some banks and credit unions have Christmas Club types of programs that you could use to do this, I am sure. Although the interest earned would be obscenely low (if at all), you can have a pullout date of, for example, December 1. If you start saving on June 1, you have 6 months set up where you can't pull out the money. As for direct deposit, you can probably direct a portion of you paycheck into it, or you could do as my wife and I did, we just set up a "bill" that had to be paid to our savings out of every paycheck and wrote a check to "pay that bill."

Good luck with your endeavors!