Tip 3: Pay Yourself $1 A Day

One thing I’ve realized as I start saving up to get myself out of debt is that you don’t get rich overnight. It’s a slow process that takes motivation and hard work. You might compare it to losing weight. Nobody is going to lose 40 pounds overnight. You have to put in the effort to burn more calories than you consume over a period of months or years. The same goes for getting out of debt. You have to spend less than you earn over many years. One way to accomplish this is by paying yourself.

I know what you’re thinking. How can I afford to pay myself when I had to pull out loans in the first place? I’ve thought the same thing many times, but the answer is pretty simple. All you need is $1 a day.

As I mentioned before, I recommend opening a high-yield savings account. Since I’ve already opened mine, all I have to do now is start adding $1 into it every day. Manually transferring $1 into my account on a daily basis would be really tedious and not the best use of my time. Fortunately, there’s a great way to get around it.

Many banks give you the option of setting up automated savings plans, where they will automatically deduct or transfer a certain amount of money at a scheduled time. As you can see below, ING gives you the option to transfer money Weekly, Bi-weekly, Fifteenth and End of Month, and Monthly.

I’m going to set up my account to transfer $7 from my regular bank account to my savings account on a weekly basis. Now I’m paying myself $1 a day, and it’s completely automated! Choose whatever frequency works best for you, and then you don’t have to worry about remembering to pay yourself anymore.

I know $1 a day isn’t much, but you have to start small. You don’t lose weight by completely avoiding food. Well, I guess you can, but then you’d die. With just $1 a day, I’m going to have $365 saved up in a year, and the best part is that I probably won’t even realize that it’s been missing.

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