By Anastasia Burton
Here we go again with some good old fashioned budgeting advice from your favourite hedgehog mom. Are you broke yet? I know Valentine’s day just passed and some of you probably spoiled the hell out of your loved ones, didn’t you?
Don’t worry, I went a bit mad myself. But hey, let’s get back to saving that money and getting that bag!
Right now, saving money is harder than ever with the never-ending lockdowns and the never-ending closures and restrictions businesses face every day. What are we to do with the PUP, the majority of which goes towards paying basic bills and food expenses? The PUP is great, and it does help to pay for the necessities and keep you on your feet, but sitting at home and having nothing to do is affecting not only our mental health but our pockets too.
When you are home alone all the time with random ads popping up, you’re tempted to give yourself some sort of joy in your life and spoil yourself a bit. Which is completely fair.
A great way for saving a little bit of money is by setting up a savings account on your phone banking app, and here is why.
AIB allows their customers to have a savings account where they can throw money in and gather interest on their savings! This also helps lower your loan interests and mortgage rates, which is handy if you are like me, and start thinking about that sort of thing pretty early on.
It is very easy to open a savings account through AIB and they give you three saving options. The first option is to give your bank permission to take about ten euro per month or week from your account and put it towards your savings. You can also deposit a large sum of money and let it sit there, it is a great way of accruing interest and the money is also easily accessible if you need it. The final option AIB offer is a savings account. Here you can deposit any sum of money, but it can only be withdrawn if you give your bank seven days’ notice. This is a great option for those of us who are impulsive and may be tempted to dip into their savings to pay their bills or buy something for themselves.
Go out there and open yourself a savings account, start that journey so that once we finally leave this endless cycle of lockdowns you can dip and fly away on a well-deserved holiday.