Save with a Plan

America Saves Week continues today with a charge to “Save with a Plan.”

Having a savings goal is a significant first step, but savers who have a plan are 2xs more likely to save successfully. Developing an action plan for your savings goal allows you to identify how you’ll achieve your goal.

For example, instead of merely stating, “I’m going to save $500 for an emergency fund,” create a plan for your saving journey.

“I’m going to save $500 for an emergency fund by saving $20 a week for 25 consecutive weeks.”

Independent Bank offers an easy-to-use, highly visual tool to help you create and track your savings goals.  We call it Money Management, and you’ll find it inside our Online Banking platform. Oh, and did we mention it’s completely free?  You can create your goals (i.e. emergency fund, saving for a car, etc.) and associate them with a specific account and timeline.  

Money Management also allows you to see all of your financial accounts in once place - even those you have with other financial institutions!  In addition to setting goals, with Money Management you get:

Transactions: View all transactions and filter by account, date, category, keyword, or amount.

Spending: Review spending categories with drill downs into subcategories and transactions.

Budgets: Auto-generate budgets based off past spending habits or create custom budget categories.

Trends: Track spending and income over time with subcategories that include transaction details.

Net Worth: Evaluate if overall net worth is trending up or down with monthly drill downs.

Debt Management: Project debt payoff dates and prioritize the completion of certain debts.

Alerts: Define alert thresholds by account and alert type.

Today we encourage you to take the America Saves Pledge. Once you do, you’ll not only receive support, reminders, and tips from America Saves; you’ll be entered to win up to $750 in their #ImSavingFor Sweepstakes!