Author: Deborah Goodkin, Managing Director, Savings Plans, First National Bank of Omaha

In times of economic uncertainty, sticking to your savings goals can become more challenging. Luckily, there are many tactics that Enable Account Owners can implement to help stabilize and boost savings, no matter one’s financial situation. To help get on track, start with these smart savings tips.

Set Achievable Goals

When financial circumstances change, your instinct may be to stop saving and focus only on immediate needs. While this is understandable - immediate needs should always come first - in most cases savings do not need to be sacrificed entirely to accommodate a tightened budget.

Rather than immediately cutting off all savings efforts, do a holistic budget refresh. Take into account your new circumstances and your current expenses, and use this to determine where to cut back and focus your resources. After doing this work, you will likely find that there is indeed room in your budget to keep up your savings. Whether this is $10 per month or $100, use this new number to calculate an achievable savings goal for the rest of the year.

Remember, your Enable funds are there to help you finance disability-related expenses. Making a commitment to your savings, even in uncertain times, is a key step in securing financial stability in the present and for the future.

Automate Contributions

One of the smartest ways to consistently grow your savings is through automating contributions. With Enable’s Automatic Investment Plan (AIP), simply set the amount and frequency of your contributions - AIP will help ensure that you stick to the plan, by automatically initiating them.

If your finances have changed in recent months, AIP can be a continuously valuable tool. As you adjust your budget to match your new circumstances, you can rest assured that, once you have adjusted your AIP settings, your savings will not be lost in the shuffle. Even if you can only contribute a few dollars per month, AIP is there to ensure that your savings are never forgotten.

Leverage Gifting

Your savings journey is not one that you must travel alone. After all, anyone can contribute to your Enable account. With gift contributions, friends and family have a quick and easy tool to help support your savings goals.

Through Ugift, your Enable account is assigned a unique code that loved ones can use to quickly and easily make contributions using a check or electronic transfer. Unlike many other gifting programs, gift givers do not have to join, register or pay a service fee, and they don’t need any additional information about your account.

With a gift certificate contribution, loved ones can fill out and mail a contribution coupon to Enable, and download and print a card from www.enablesavings.com to give for the occasion.

Stay Informed

If you’re reading this blog, you are already being proactive and taking steps to stay informed about the tips, tools and resources available to you. The Enable blog is an ongoing resource for our community of Account Owners and we encourage you to join us on Facebook @EnableSavingsPlan to be the first to hear when a new blog publishes, and to stay up to date with all things Enable.

If you have any additional questions regarding your account please reach out to the Enable team at 1-844-362-2534 or via email at clientservices@enablesavings.com.