One of our brilliant users (and also President of Tekture) Nathan Sudds sent us a great little tip for using billQ in a unique way. His suggestion is to create savings goals. So for example, you add a new bill, but instead of it being an actual bill, it will be a savings goal. You could have a "bill" called Savings for the amount of $25.00 that is due every week. Using the billQ reminders, you could then be reminded to "pay" savings every week. But obviously you wouldn't be paying savings like you would a bill, you would be putting the money into a savings account (consider a high-yield account). This is an awesome tip and it is a great way to use the core functionality of billQ in a slightly different way.
Nathan also added some great advice along with his tip.
I think it's important to not really think of saving as just a larger number, but rather along the lines of savings of a lower amount that will add up if you make it regularly. It's amazing how having a smaller amount, made more regularly allows the pressure to come off. You no longer feel that it's not possible. $50 every week adds up to $200 per month, or $250 every 2 weeks adds up to $500 per month.
We totally agree. A great way to put his tip into use is to have a bunch of smaller savings goals, made more often. This also creates a less intimidating savings habit.
You're less likely to save if you say $500 on the 28th, because something will come up that will make that one-time larger amount of $500 not possible.
Nathan also mentions David Bach's Latte Factor as a nice concise summary of this idea of smaller, more frequent savings. The numbers Bach lays out really put it into perspective.
We love to hear tips like these. It's great to see people applying their own methodology to billQ. If anyone has their own little hacks, let us know and we'll spread the word to the rest of the billQ community.