If you’re struggling with a credit card balance, student loans or any other type of debt, you may be feeling stuck on how to manage your payment schedule. Ally Bank’s spending and savings buckets are tools that can help you organize and automate your way toward a debt-free financial future.
We’ll break it down into four steps.
Step 1: Set up your spending buckets to track payments
Making debt payments a regular part of your monthly budget is key to tackling debt. With spending buckets in an Ally Bank Spending Account, you get a clear, visual snapshot of where your money goes each month — which can include payments to repay debt.
Spending buckets function like digital envelopes. You can designate your money for specific expenses into different buckets, choosing what each is for — such as rent or mortgage, credit card payments or even groceries — and how much you want to allocate toward them. The funds can be automatically distributed amongst your buckets each time you deposit money into your account or moved manually, if you’d prefer.
Tip: Want to make paying down debt even more hands off? Set up bill pay in your Ally Bank Spending Account, so payments flow straight from your account to their destinations.
Making debt payments a regular part of your monthly budget is key to tackling debt.
Step 2: Use savings buckets for extra payments
Just like spending buckets, savings buckets (in an Ally Bank Savings Account) help you set clear goals and put aside money toward them. Again, think digital envelopes. Seeing your savings goals clearly defined can be motivating. As each savings bucket fills up, you’ll feel that much closer to making your financial goals a reality.
In your Ally Bank Savings Account, create a debt paydown bucket and set aside any extra cash or unexpected windfalls for extra payments toward your principal. Set up automatic transfers to build toward your savings goals without even thinking about it (though a check-in now and again is essential to ensure you’re staying on track — see step 4).
Ally Bank offers other smart savings tools to make the process even easier:
Surprise Savings automatically analyzes your spending to spot extra dollars you could be saving and transfers that safe-to-save money into your savings account
Round Ups rounds each purchase you make up to the nearest dollar and transfers the spare change into your Ally Bank Savings Account once you’ve accrued $5
Step 3: Connect your accounts to automate everything
Having both savings and spending accounts with Ally Bank makes managing your money fast and effortless. Everything lives in one place, so transfers are instantaneous, and tracking is simple.
Link your accounts to create a system that works for you. Maybe you have dedicated spending buckets in your Ally Bank Spending Account to cover your mortgage, credit cards and everyday expenses. Money flows into them automatically when a deposit is made to your account. And you can set up bill pay to automatically take care of payments when they are due.
If you connect your Ally Bank Savings Account and enable automatic transfers, Surprise Savings and Round Ups, extra money will get funneled into any savings buckets you’ve set up. Everything works together to move you closer to your goals.
Step 4: Monitor and adjust your buckets regularly
When your money isn’t organized, it can feel difficult to find any extra money to put toward your debt. Once your fixed expenses and savings goals are clearly designated, analyze your spending for missed opportunities hiding in plain sight. For instance, you might notice you’re spending less on certain utilities at certain times of the year, or you’ll see you’re close to hitting your goal for your kid’s college bucket. When you spot that extra cash, you can redirect it toward your debt.
Using spending and savings buckets together empowers you to make shifts as your circumstances change. If your rent goes up, you may need to scale back on your debt payments. Or perhaps you’ve barely watched TV in months, so you can cut back on streaming services and increase your monthly credit card payment.
Conquer debt with buckets
Want to start climbing out of debt but don’t know where to start? Buckets are a simple, sustainable solution to transform how you manage your money. Put your debt-busting plan into action with these valuable tools.
