The 5 Laziest Ways to Be Good With Money

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Most personal finance advice overcomplicates things.

You don’t have to track every dollar, rotate your credit card categories, or rebalance your portfolio quarterly. Some people do want that, but most people don’t, and that’s fine. You can do very well financially without turning your money management into a part-time job.

These are the moves that require almost no ongoing effort and pay you back for years.

1. Automate your savings before you can spend it

The single most effective savings strategy is setting up an automatic transfer from your checking account to a savings account the day after your paycheck lands. Even $100 or $200 a month, moved before you have a chance to spend it, adds up faster than most people expect.

If that savings is sitting in a high-yield account earning around 4.00% APY instead of a traditional account paying 0.01%, it compounds meaningfully over time. You can compare some of the best high-yield savings accounts here.

2. Get your full 401(k) match

If your employer offers a 401(k) match and you’re not contributing enough to get all of it, you’re turning down part of your compensation. That’s the whole argument. There’s no version of this where leaving the match on the table makes sense.

An example of a common employer match is 50% of your contribution up to 6% of your salary. On a $60,000 salary, that’s up to $1,800 a year your employer is offering to put in your retirement account. Most people just need to log in once, adjust their contribution percentage, and leave it alone.

3. Put your bills on autopay

Late fees, interest charges, and hits to your credit score are all avoidable with autopay. Set it up once. Pay the minimum if you’re nervous about cash flow, or the full balance if you can. Either way, you stop paying for forgetting.

This also applies to annual fees on cards you’ve decided to keep, insurance renewals, and subscriptions you’ve reviewed and actually want. The goal isn’t to set and forget every bill forever. It’s to make sure nothing slips through and costs you money for no reason.

4. Stop keeping all your money in one account

Keeping all of your money in a checking account makes it genuinely harder to save. Not only does the lack of separation make it easy to overspend, most checking accounts pay no interest.

A solid financial foundation includes:

• A checking account for paying bills and spending money
• A high-yield savings account for all of your emergency and short-term savings.
• And a tax-advantaged retirement account like an IRA or Roth IRA for long-term savings.

5. Use a flat-rate cash back card for everything you already buy

You’re going to spend money on groceries, gas, and utilities. A flat-rate cash back card earning around 2% on everything means you’re getting something back on all of your spending without tracking categories or thinking about it.

On $2,000 a month in normal spending, that’s around $480 a year back in your pocket. Set it to autopay the full balance each month and there’s nothing else to manage.

Check out our full list of all the best flat-rate cash back cards available now.

“Lazy” doesn’t have to mean “bad”

None of this is complicated, and that’s the point. The best financial habits aren’t the ones that require the most discipline. They’re the ones that require the least, because those are the ones you’ll actually keep.

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