Put your savings on auto-pilot with the help of these free sites

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Saving money is great, but what if you could put saving on auto-pilot just from things you do every day?

UPromise.com is one legitimate site that I’m asked about often. With UPromise.com, you sign up by registering your credit cards and then certain purchases you make in the course of your normal shopping earn money that goes toward your kids’ college fund.  

There used to be 3 players in this field and now as best I know there are only 2 left. I have in the past also talked about BabyMint.com, which offers a similar set-up to UPromise. Some retailers participate with both UPromise and BabyMint, but you have to pick which one you want the money from your purchase to go toward.  No double dipping!

One caveat though about these kinds of sites. You don’t want to spend at a store where you wouldn’t normally shop just to pick up extra college money. You could be paying more at a store and trying to rationalize that it’s going to help the college fund. That’s not smart. I still want you to buy where the best deal is, and these kinds of sites should just be considered like a bonus thrown into the equation.

What makes all of these kinds of sites work is that you don’t have to consciously do something every time you’re shopping. Those kinds of savings programs that require you to be more actively involved don’t work as effectively, in my opinion.

For example, I was looking at my Android and saw 4 apps on there that are supposed to save me money as I’m out and about. Now, do I remember to look at these apps to see what savings are available to me? No way. I may be Cheap Guy, but like everybody else I’m too busy and have too many distractions to remember to look. So any way you can automate the savings, well, that’s the ticket.

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