Round up purchases to savings

[Rainier99]

When making a purchase from your BECU Checking account, the purchase is rounded up to the next whole dollar and the rounded amount is transfered to your savings account.

For example:

Buy lunch for $7.38 and 62 cents is added to your savings account.

Spend $1.19 on a candy bar and 81 cents is added to your savings account.

[tractorshop]

I like the idea. Possibly have the feature deposit into a savings account that is seperate from a persons standard saving account.

[miketsesh]

I had this years ago with another bank. I loved it. Those pennies add up!

[robspeewack]

this is an incredible idea. I would aboslutely use this if it were a BECU feature.

[Kat1966]

This is a great idea as long as you remember to adjust for the round up when you use your card.

If you use it quite a lot, you may end up short without thinking about it or overdrawn with no access to the account. 

Still, l like the idea because it is simple and could be very effective in saving.

[Melody]

I also like this idea of rounding up and it going into a savings account. I like the idea of it going into a separate savings account then person's standard savings account too. It would keep the regular savings account that maybe for something specific separate from the extra pennies savings account. 

[rbjacobs7]

Great Idea. I came here to post the same thing. Plus it's so much easier to keep track of purchases when it's done in whole dollars.

[jvwelch]

 @JohnS Re:

"Your idea sounds interesting - can you elaborate? How would you want to select the pre-set percentage? Would you want to change the amount often, or only if you knew you were going to be spending more?"

Can't speak for the other BECU member that posted the idea, but I would like to request three options for automating savings perks with debit card purchases:

1. Round to nearest dollar (Ex. $10.01 purchase becomes $11.00, $0.99 difference transferred to savings)

2. Member-chosen flat-rate amount per transaction (Ex. each debit card swipe moves $1 / $5 / $10 into savings)

3. Member-chosen percentage amount per transaction (Ex. each debit card transaction moves 1% / 5% / 10% into savings)

If this is at all possible, it will be a HUGE game changer for personal banking. The big banks make their money off of fees and don't want to enable their customers with savings automation tools like this.

I would want to change between the different options, and change the amount transferred to savings, at least as frequently as once a month or once a quarter. Ideally it would be user-managed via the website and take effect after 5-10 business days.

[Mathleen]

This sounds like you want to trick yourself into saving money. Just be honest and forthright with yourself and decide exactly how much you want to go into your savings account. Set up an automatic transfer or put it on your calendar. Don't give yourself one more excuse to make a frivolous purchase because you will be "adding to your savings account at the same time."  Make a plan and stick with it! 

[KristinA]

@Rainier99 and all contributors- Thank you for your excitement and enthusiasm for this round up to savings idea! I wanted to share the great news that we're currently exploring what it would take for us to develop something like this, including the separate account idea that was mentioned a couple different times. We're hoping to evaluate the feasibility by the end of the year so I will keep you posted on any new developments. 

Thanks everyone for your engagement, keep the support for great ideas like these coming, we're listening, I promise! Cheers, KristinA