Around the same time you collect payroll, your checking account empties, and bills like the rent or the mortgage, gas, electricity, telephone, and gym are due. It is as if all the companies knew when they paid you and were racing to be the first to collect. And that is partly the case.
Unlike other states, such as the United States, the most common is to domicile most of the receipts in Spain. It is more comfortable and an excellent formula for not forgetting any payment or spending the money before facing your fixed monthly expenses. In short, you know you will pay every month because you do it automatically, and you don’t have to bother putting down all the receipts.
What if you could do the same with your savings and investments? Is it possible to automate your investments and protection to go on autopilot? The answer is yes, and it also has its advantages.
The Advantages of Automating Your Savings
Putting your savings on autopilot is easy. It consists of saving something mechanical within your cash flows. The key to manufacturing it work is to do it when you receive your salary before you can spend it and even realize it’s there.
In other words, save at the beginning of the month instead of at the end. Just as you domicile your receipts, you can also domicile your savings. It is what the Americans call “pay yourself first” and that Luis Pita baptized as pre-saving in his book “Have a poor car than your neighbor.”
The main advantage of this method is that “you will save every month without making any effort or having to resort to your willpower constantly,” explains Pita. As the saving is automatic, you will permanently save regardless of the rest of the expenses. And since you will not see the money in your account because you will withdraw it at the beginning of the month, you will not miss it either.
“Human beings adapt to changes better than we think. The first month you may notice that you are missing the money you save, but after three months, you will have adapted your level of spending to your new income”, summarizes Pita.
How to Automate Your Savings
Starting to save mechanically is very simple. Do not take more than 5 minutes. To automate your savings, all you have to do is order the bank to make a transfer from your daily use account to your savings account and then tell it to repeat that operation every month at the beginning of the month.
If you are an ING client with an ORANGE Account, it is as easy as entering the “My Products” area and selecting the account in which you receive your payroll. You must access “Operate” and click “Make a transfer.” On the next screen, you will be able to select the destination account and establish the amount, and just by marking the periodic section, you will save every month without effort.
The Advantages of Automating Your Investments
You can apply the same strategy you follow for your savings to your investments. As you save automatically, you can invest on autopilot without worrying about giving the order every month.
This strategy involves making periodic contributions to your investment and, in addition, creating orders so that they occur automatically. This strategy is known as Dollar Cost Averaging or averaging.
The three advantages of making regular contributions to your investments are:
- It serves to combat market volatility. Combined with long-term investment, regular contributions tend to minimize stock market ups and downs. The times you buy cheap will offset the times you buy more expensive and vice versa. As one of Peter Lynch’s best-known stock quotes says, “I don’t know if the next 1,000 points in the Dow Jones will be up or down, but I’m sure the next 10,000 will be up.” In other words, prolonged, the averages prevail, and in the case of the S&P 500, they mark a historical average return of 9.87%, including the reinvestment of dividends.
- Avoiding market timing is one of the most common mistakes. By establishing an automatic contribution plan, you avoid guessing when is the best and worst time to buy or sell. You always do it on the same day, and you never disinvest. For 13 years, Peter Lynch achieved a 29% annualized return with the Magellan fund. However, the average gain of the participants in it was less than 7% precisely because they did not maintain the investment and tried to do market timing.
- You acquire discipline and perseverance. You make these skills one more part of your financial routine by automating investments without forgetting or making excuses. Thanks to this, you take better advantage of compound interest, which only needs time and perseverance to work its magic.
How to Automate Your Investments with Regular Contributions
As in the previous case, making an automatic periodic contribution to your investment fund portfolio is straightforward.
If you are an ING client, it is as easy as entering the “My Products” area and selecting the fund for which you want to make the regular contribution. You must access “Operate” and click “Make a subscription.” On the next screen, you can choose the source account, set the amount to invest each month, and confirm the order once the periodic section has been marked: you will start investing every month without effort.
The reason is that they are all already diversified products designed for long-term investment, in which this type of strategy works best.
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