Don't forget, use direct deposit to transfer a portion of your salary to your savings

[james.hendrickson]

This is a total no brainer and I'm sure most of the savingadvice forums is already doing this, but if your company allows it, every single paycheck you should deduct a portion of your salary to go directly into your savings or emergency fund.

[moneybags]

You can also set up an auto-investment each month from your checking account into your investment account. It's a great way to build up your investments.

[kork13]

In general terms, automatic, recurring savings/investment transactions are by far the most reliable & successful method for building up your savings. Out of sight, out of mind. If I had to manually transfer money from my account each month, there's no way I would be able to save to the level we do. I'd forget, I'd be more conservative & not save as much, and it would be easier to rationalize saving less so that I can buy [whatever].

By having everything set up and happening on its own, I can plan for what I want/need to save each month, then I just have to live off of what remains. Way easier, and way more reliable.

[scfr]

Direct deposits are often a requirement to receive bank bonuses. If you're willing to do a bit of research and tiny bit of work, and change your DD bank from time to time, you can utilize your DDs to earn some pretty sweet bonuses.

[disneysteve]

This is a total no brainer and I'm sure most of the savingadvice forums is already doing this

It's funny but until you posted this, I hadn't really thought about it, but no, other than my 401k contributions which are taken out by payroll at work, I do not have any automatic savings set up at this time. I used to in the past but the last auto-saving we had was to our daughter's 529 and we stopped that at the beginning of her senior year. Anything we do currently is done manually.

[bjl584]

Money auto transfers to my brokerage account on the first of every month.
Other than that, I handle everything manually.