8 Financially Savvy Ways Banks’ Budgeting Features Can Save You More Money
Written by
Jacob Wade
Edited by
Amber Barkley
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While there are a lot of great budgeting and financial management apps out there–did you know some banks have budgeting features built into your bank account?
You can use some of the simple automations and budgeting features in your bank account to save more money, keep an eye on your spending and hit your financial goals.
Set Budget Categories
Many bank accounts allow you to categorize your transactions. For example, if you spend money on your debit card, each transaction is tracked in your banking app. You can then go into your banking app and sort your transactions by category.
This will show you how much you’re spending in each category and can help you make better spending decisions.
Track and Review Spending
In addition to categorizing your spending, some banking apps allow you to track spending in each category, as well as generate income and spending reports to get a pulse on your finances. Using these built-in reporting tools allows you to get a big-picture view of your finances, as well as see where you spend the most money.
Generating monthly spending reports and reviewing where you money goes can help you adjust your spending, cut back on frivolous purchases and save more money.
Set Savings Goals
Many banking apps allow you to set savings goals within your account. If you have a checking account with a linked savings account, you can create a savings goal and track it within your banking app. You can set a goal amount, set a date to save by, and track your savings balances each month.
Built-in goal-tracking can help you save for a house, your emergency fund or an upcoming vacation.
Set Alerts
Most banking apps allow you to set alerts for when your balance gets low or in the case of suspicious transactions. But banks with budgeting features also allow you to set alerts for when you’ve overspent a specific budget category.
This can help you keep an eye on your bank account balance and your spending in specific categories.
Use Automatic Bill Pay
Most bank accounts support automatic bill pay, which can make it easier to pay bills on time and seamlessly. You can connect to your online services and pay bills digitally — or have your bank account send checks out to services that don’t support online payments.
Automatic bill pay helps you avoid late payments and potential extra fees for missing bills. And it can help simplify your budget to keep all payments within one app.
Set Up Multiple Savings Accounts
Setting up multiple savings accounts is a great way to set and automate savings goals. Many banks allow you to open multiple accounts and label each account with a nickname. Others allow you to divide one savings account into different savings categories, often called “buckets.” You can rename each account or bucket for different purposes, such as saving for a house down payment or an emergency fund.
Creating separate savings accounts helps you easily track the balances for each of your savings goals. It also keeps money out of your checking account and can help stop you from spending those funds. This is a powerful budgeting trick to have you save money faster and help you hit your financial goals.
Bill Tracking
Some bank accounts track recurring payments and will predict when payments will be coming due. This gives you insights into the timeline of when payments will leave your account — helping you make sure the money is in the account and available for when the payment is due.
Some apps even show your payments on a calendar to give you a clearer view of your bills.
Automatic Savings
Most bank accounts allow you to set up recurring transfers. These are money transfers from one account to another on a set schedule. This is a great way to set up automatic savings each month. And automatic savings is one of the best ways to hit your goals — saving in the background helps you save money without thinking about it.
Some banks allow you to set up recurring transfers to multiple accounts, while others allow you to automate savings transfers into your different buckets.
Bank Account Budgeting Features Can Help You Save More
Not all banks have built-in budgeting features, but the ones that do can help you keep an eye on your money. You can track your spending, set alerts, review financial reports and set savings goals. Taking advantage of these tools can help you make better financial decisions, eliminate wasted spending and, ultimately, save more money.
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