Is it easy for you to access your money 24/7? If it is, it’s also easy to spend as much as, or more, than you have. For example, my sister will stop at the bank to get the balance on her ATM card to see if she has enough money to go out. If there is money in the account, she knows she can go out (and usually does). The problem is that this method of accounting leaves nothing for the next day except credit card debt and interest charges.

I took me a while to figure out a way to help her save money and not even know she was doing it. I didn’t separate out a big chunk of money to save so that she would have money in the account if she needed it. To start saving, I used https://www.capitalone.com/ to setup an online saving account without a debit card.

Each month on her payday I set up an automatic transfer of $100. You can do more or less – whatever you can afford. The automatic transfer would take the money out before my sister saw it on her ATM balance. Of course, she would continue to spend her money down to just a few bucks before the next payday, but the nice part was she now had $100 saved. If she really needed to get to the saved money, she could get it in the 3 days it takes to transfer it back to her normal account, but that 3 days kept her from spending it because she didn't see it when she got her ATM balance.

She didn’t even miss the money. After 6 months, I showed her the $600+interest (1%), and she was amazed she had saved it. I suggested that she forget about it and see how long she could keep the process going. Today, my sister has over $3000 saved. Of course, it helps she forgot her password so she can't check on it. Once out of her account, though, she didn't miss the money and was able to create savings without any effort, and she achieved this just by adding a little separation between herself and her money. Now, all I need to do is get my sister to leave a little in the bank and not use the “check the ATM” to see if she has money left to spend!