There are many tools you can use to build up your savings
Savers have been urged to use an app tool to build up their savings. The feature is available with big name banks such as Lloyds Bank, Nationwide Building Society and Halifax, and can be used when making regular payments such as buying your groceries or getting a coffee.
Mike Ambery, retirement savings director at Standard Life, shared some tips for how to build up your savings. One idea he had is to use a feature of banking apps whereby you can round up the amount you pay for an item and put the difference into your savings.
He said: “Many banking apps let you round up your purchases and save the spare change automatically. For example, spending £2.80 nut rounding this to £3, so 20p goes straight into savings.
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“It’s a simple way to build a savings pot without noticing, and works well for those who find it hard to commit larger amounts.” Customers with Lloyds Banking Group banks, such as Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland, can set this up with the Save the Change feature.
You can arrange this in the mobile app or through online banking. Nationwide Building Society also has a round-up tool which works in a similar way, rounding up your purchases to the nearest pound and putting the extra amount in your savings.
Mr Ambery shared some other tips for how to build up your savings. He suggested having different savings pots for different goals, such as for your holidays, for your Christmas spending or for emergencies.
He explained how you could make sure you chip in for these different funds, saying: “You can automate transfers on payday so the money’s saved before you spend it. This makes it easier to separate short-term goals from longer-term ones like saving for retirement.”
You could also try using AI tools, which can look at your spending and move over small, affordable amounts when you can afford this. Mr Ambery said: “It’s a great way to build up funds in the background, especially if you’re not sure how much you can spare each month.
“It’s always good to regularly check that the tools are working for you – and remember that while AI can be useful, it can’t always be relied on to get things 100 percent right.”
Standard Life recently released its Retirement Voice 2025 report, which found that those in the Gen Z age range (born between roughly 1997 and 2012) hope to retire by age 60 on average. The group calculated that a person earning £25,000 a year paying the minimum 8 percent auto enrolment contribution could have a retirement pot of £210,000 by the age of 68, adjusted for 2 percent inflation.