From time to time, you'll hear these gurus and big banks touting formulas and "mind hacks" to help you save more money. Sadly, they rarely work unless you actually turn them into a habit. In today's blog post, I will talk about two of these tricks that I've come across, one which is by the all too famous Bank of America themselves. 1) The "Round-up-your-spending" trick The title is pretty much self explanatory. Whenever you spend money, just round however much you have left up to the nearest dollar and move that into your savings account. This is the saving trick that was invented by Bank of America. In all actuality, they offer this option as well - since you could elect to have their credit cards and debit cards automatically round up to the nearest dollar and deposit the difference in savings. However, I strongly disagree with this idea simply because it rewards spending. Every time you reward yourself for something, whether it's with a piece of chocolate or fruit, your brain releases dopamine and thus it reinforces the behavior. I believe that in the long run, you'll begin to associate spending with saving and that's not a good thing. 2) The "Notepad" trick The idea is that whenever you feel the urge to spend money on something you may or may not need, write it down on a notepad first. Then a week later, if you still feel the desire to own that item, you may go ahead and buy it. If after a week, you feel like you no longer need it, then cross the item off the list. Many times we'll buy random things like tea kettles which we'll use once then allow it to collect cobwebs in the closet. There you have it, two easy tricks you can use to trick your mind into saving more and spending less. Let me know which one you like better and how it works for you. Thanks for reading!