Everywhere you turn there are tips to save money on groceries, gas, travel expenses, on your utility bills, on your phone bill but how do you actually GROW your savings account?

You can nickle-and-dime yourself on every cost in your life but if you don’t focus on creating a savings account, a nest egg, are you really getting anywhere?

Tips to Growing Your Savings Account

1. Remove easy access to your savings account. Let’s face it, if you can get to it, you’ll probably spend it, right? So try opening a second bank account specifically just for your savings. This will make your savings more difficult to access. “Out of site out of mind.” Simple trick but it works.
2. Find a bank that actually PAYS YOU to use their services. There are banks that pay you interest on your savings account and a few that will pay you interest for you checking as well! HSBC Direct, is one such bank. Why continue to use a bank that charges YOU services fees, minimum balance fees, and has an interest rate on your savings account of 0.001%?
3. Make a strong effort NOT to shop. If you know that when you go to the mall you’re going to buy stuff, especially stuff you don’t need, then avoid the mall. If you feel the urge to go shopping, just to go shopping, distract yourself by doing something more constructive. Maybe take your kids to the park or read a good book.
4. Create a Coin Jar. This is a very simple but effective trick to growing your savings. Add all spare change into a coin jar. Once the jar is full, take it to your bank and put it into your savings account.
5. Stop frivolous spending. If you’re doing everything you can to save money, clipping coupons, bargain shopping, why are you still spending a good chunk of your money on no-need items, like going out to lunch at work, buying your jumbo non-fat mocha every morning? This is called your “latte factor”, a concept in The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach.
6. Take $20 and Stash it. From every paycheck take $20 and stash into your savings account. $20 is enough to still be able to see your savings grow over time but not hurt your monthly budget. If you can do more, do it.
7. Try the “Envelop system”. This is a savings program where you only use cash to purchase anything. You calculate your monthly spending budget and you put that amount in cash into an envelope. When you make a purchase you only use the cash available in the envelope. For some people this really works because it’s much more difficult to let go of your hard earned cash than it is to swipe a plastic card.
8. Pay Yourself FIRST. This, I believe, is the most effective method to growing your savings. Before you pay any bills, buy any groceries or make the car payment; pay your self first. Take that $20, $50 or $100 and put it into savings before you pay anyone else.
   A simple way to get this going is to set you bank up with automatic withdraw. This way the money is taken out of you account and added to your savings before you even see it. It’s like it was never there.

Do you have tips, trick or ideas, that work for you? Please share them in the comments.