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Welcome back to the show. Today is National Savings Day. Let's get started. We are talking about saving today, and not so much the random stuff that you save around your house, like paper, and trinkets and little things like that.
Instead, we're talking about saving the stuff that it takes to get those things. Yes, I'm talking about the almighty dollar, mean green, d'unaro, luchiana, whatever it is that you choose to call your money. That's what I'm talking about today. We're talking about saving money, and I'm going to kind of give you a couple of tips that maybe might help you to save a little bit more, a little bit better.
I don't know, maybe you thought of it, maybe you have it. We'll see. But going back to the idea of just saving stuff in general, did you know that there are actually studies out there where they've said that if you're good at just saving random stuff, then you might be pretty good at saving money, too. Unfortunately, it's not a cut and dry, just exact science, right?
So you might be good at saving old newspapers, but you might not be that great at stacking papers. You know, so here's my tip, my first tip for you on how to help you stack those papers. Let's get fancy with our money and give it a name. Yes, I feel like if you name your money, now I mean like name each bill, but name it in general, you would be more apt to treat it more like a person and show it some respect and not be so quick to just spend it all willy-nilly on whatever this thing is that you say that you need when we all know that it's just a want, right?
So let me give you a better example. Let's say that we've got some European extravaganza trip that we want to take for 2022. I'll go to my bank and create an account that's titled European Trip 2022. And then that way I have an entity now for that money that's going towards that trip because if you think about it, if you're just saying, hey, we're going to go on vacation, I got to start saving some money.
Well, that's just talk. You need to put some action behind that talk. So if you have an actual place where you're going to put this money, then I think that makes you a little bit more cognizant. It may make you be a little bit more responsible actually putting something there.
I've even heard people do this just in their homes with jars. And that way they see the jar in front of them. And when the jar is empty, guess what? That means your trip is not going to launch.
You're going to have to do a little bit more work. Now the only part about putting it in a jar to me is that it's not really doing anything for you. However, when you think about the bank, it's not doing a whole lot for you there either, but something's better than nothing. So a couple of pennies versus no pennies at all.
I might just go ahead and let the bank hold it and do it because you need it to be liquid. You can't just go invested in something. You just pull it right back out. So yeah, now if you have time, then sure, get a savings bond or something like that.
But if you're short on time and short on cash and you need to try to collect some, give it a name. The first tip is for those people who deal with cash. Maybe you have a job where you get tips or maybe you just get paid under the table like that. And that makes sense that you would have a jar that you could actually see as the money accumulates in it.
However, if you have the right deposit, that's probably not going to be the best option for you because you can write a check and put that check in your jar, but we all know. If you don't have money in that account, then it's just a piece of paper, right? So here's my tip number two. If you have direct deposit, why wait?
Go ahead and automate. Simply put, if money is being zapped to your account, when it comes in, then what you do is send money from there to another account. That way, money is automatically being sent to this other account every time your paycheck hits. It's set up monthly or however you wanted to come out, whatever percentage you want to come out or a particular dollar amount.
If you are calculating it to be like, all right, I need this amount of money by this time. That means I need to save this much per paycheck or whatever. It's easy because it's happening without you having to remember to do it every month, right? And so I really think that's probably one of the best things.
Kind of like those apps. Have you heard of the different apps where you make a payment? Or maybe they're not apps. Maybe they're credit cards.
Where you make a payment, you buy something. And then it'll ask you, do you want to round up to the next dollar? Sure. Well, that portion that you're rounding up then goes into a separate account.
Even though in most cases, it's just pennies on the dollar. It accumulates so fast when you're not sitting and watching it. It's like a pot of water on the stove. It takes forever to boil when you watch it.
But when you turn your bat, you go do something real quick. That water has boiled out of the pot by the time you get back into the kitchen. You're like, oh my gosh, I was only gone for two seconds. It never boils that fast, right?
So that's my second tip. You can easily reach your goal, especially if you have a particular goal in mind by automating it and setting a particular amount aside to be taken out of your account every month. Okay. So you were probably sitting here saying right now that you know what event you haven't told me anything that I didn't already know.
All of my money already has a name. And on top of that, I automate every month like clockwork. So what else do you have for me? Well, I got one for you.
I don't know if you've ever heard of this or not, but there's this thing called an emergency financial first aid kit. Have you heard of one or better yet? Do you have one? So here's the deal.
Just like you would have a first aid kit for an injury that would happen, this is a financial first aid kit in case of emergency. What is it? A stash of money? The things that you need to be able to get to your money because unfortunately there are faces on dollar bills, but none of them are yours.
So people just can't look at a bill and be like, Oh, yep, this is yours. Here you go. It's not that easy. Now, granted, because a lot of things are digital now, things are a little bit easier.
But even in this digital age, for example, when my identity got stolen, it was very difficult for me to move around in this space because people didn't even believe me at this point that I was who I said I was and I had to prove to my different account holders who I was before they would even disclose any information to me. So in case there's some type of emergency and we're talking about like hurricane, earthquake, tornado, things like that. If you have a situation like that, you have that bag set ready that when it happens, you grab it and go. This emergency financial first aid kit needs to be in your bag.
Well, where can I find one of these or how do I put one together? I'm glad you asked. Let me tell you. So this emergency financial first aid kit is available for free.
You hear that? Free 99 free free free free free free free from the federal emergency management agency, also known as FEMA. Yep, if you call their 800 number, 1-800-488-2520 and ask for publication P2063, you will receive your emergency financial first aid kit. But there's more.
It's also available as a free download online at www.ready.gov slash financial preparedness. And then one last place that you can find it, it can also be found at www.operationhope.org. All of these places, you can get access to the emergency financial first aid kit and even one of them, I think it's the ready.gov location, I think that is a fillable form. If it's not that one, it's the operation hope website.
When they have the fillable form where you can just type in the information right there at your computer and print it out versus having to hand write it all. And honestly, I think that this emergency financial first aid kit is not just good for emergency situations like disasters, but even in situations where a loved one, something happens to them and they can't tell you the things that you would need to be able to gain access to any of their accounts or whatever. This is the thing that's going to help them help you help them. I was going to say help them help you.
No, help you help them. So check it out. Once again, FEMA has it, 1-800-488-2520. You can also get it from ready.gov slash financial preparedness or operationhope.org.
And I didn't mention it again, but the publication from FEMA is P2063. That was today's episode of Tweetrends. Thank you so much for joining me and spending National Savings Day with us. Here's the big ask.
Share this episode with somebody. Make sure they have their emergency financial first aid kit. I mean, it doesn't matter how old they are, young or old. Get them in the habit of having something like this and have it in a safe place because you never know when something might happen and they need help.
You need help. Somebody needs some help. And you would actually be amazed to find out how many people actually don't have a means for saving. They don't even have a savings account or a checking account.
That right there is mind boggling to me. I actually had a babysitter that didn't have an account and that blew me away because I just wanted to drop money in her account for her and I couldn't. Trying to bless you. Anyway, so don't block your blessings guys.
Get some type of account. If you're just using it to pay bills, then that works too. But find a way to learn how to save. It will help you so much in the long run.
All right. Have a great day. I'll see you guys back here again on Thursday. Bye.