How I saved $136 in 5 weeks without doing anything (yes, really)

Disclaimer: This post is for entertainment purposes only and does NOT constitute financial advice. This is NOT a sponsored post and we are not being paid for this.

1 in 5 Brits don’t have anything in their savings account according to a study in 2019 and 25% of Americans don’t have emergency savings with many saying they don’t have confidence in their retirement savings.

Personal finance can be a scary and complex topic. Putting away money can be difficult, but it is necessary.

For a long time, I have followed the 6 Jars system (and I still do). If you’re unfamiliar with the 6 jars, here’s a quick breakdown:

You divide your money into 6 different accounts (jars) as follows:

Necessary — 55%

This is the account for all of your living expenses e.g. rent, utilities etc.

Play — 10%

This is money for you to spend how you want on things that aren’t essential but are enjoyable such as dinner at a restaurant.

Financial Freedom Account — 10%

This account is used for building up your income streams. You will only spend this money on investments and nothing else.

Education — 10%

This money is for your education and personal development. This can include things like course, seminars, book etc.

Long Term Savings — 10%

This is the money that you can put away for bigger purchases — a vacation or new TV, you can also use this as an emergency fund.

Give — 5%

This money is for spending on others, for friends and family’s birthdays and special occasions. You can also give this money to your favourite causes.

This is a great system and it has served me well for years; however sometimes I would forget to do it.

Yep, unfortunately as hard as we try to be disciplined, we sometimes fail, that’s not a bad thing (failure isn’t falling down, it’s staying down) this, by the time I got around to doing, expense had already come in, money had been spent and I would try would spend half a day working out percentages and subtracting what had already been spent from the various jars.

Although time consuming, I’ve always viewed this as a necessary inconvenience. Then I came across plum.

Plum is a savings app that using AI technology figures out your monthly expense and squirrels a calculated amount of money without you noticing. The app also has a setting called round ups where the app will round up your expenses to and move the change into a savings account.

The app also has a pro version (which I haven’t used) which I lets you make different savings pots and you can also invest in stock and shares using Plum.

Again, I haven’t used any of these features so I can’t really comment on them, I just wanted to let you know they are there.

I’ve been using Plum for 5 weeks and so far, I’ve been able to put away £101.28 ($136) and I haven’t even noticed. Plum works with all major UK banks and can be downloaded on ios and Android.