Survey: Saving Money Easier to Say Than Do

You're not the only one who finds it hard to save. A recent survey found that most Americans think about saving for the future, but only a small number of them actually do it. The Braun Research and Bank of America survey gives a clear picture of how people in big cities feel about money and how important it is to save. Some of what they found:

1. People in San Francisco are less likely to set financial goals than people in other parts of the country, but 64 percent of residents are saving for retirement, compared to 55 percent of Americans as a whole.
2. 76% of people who live in Dallas are likely to save money for the future in general rather than for a specific goal. If they had an extra $1,000, they'd be more likely to use it to fix up their homes.
3. People in New York worry about money, but they tend to be spendthrifts who use their savings to treat themselves. On the other hand, 36 percent of New Yorkers save for college costs, while only 27 percent of Americans do.
4. Paying bills is the most important thing for people in Los Angeles, but they also tend to save money for special occasions.
5. People in Chicago are three times more likely to compare prices and think of themselves as cheap. Twenty-four percent of people who live in Chicago use direct deposit to save money, while only 12 percent of people in the rest of the country do the same.
6. People in Miami worry about saving money for themselves and their families, but only 23 percent of them are actually doing it.

Does any of this ring a bell? Do you often have little or no money left over after paying your bills? If so, do you spend that money on something nice instead of putting it in the bank?

"Americans know they should save money for bad times, but they need help. The "Keep the Change" savings programme from Bank of America helps people save for a rainy day by putting away a penny at a time from their everyday purchases "Diane Morais, a Bank of America executive in charge of deposits and withdrawals, said this.

"Keep the Change" is a programme that automatically saves your spare change and helps you build and keep better savings habits. When people in the programme use their Bank of America Visa check cards to buy something, the price is rounded up to the nearest dollar. The difference is moved to the customer's savings account at the end of the day. Bank of America matches 100% of the transfers for the first three months after signing up, and then matches 5% of the transfers after that, up to a maximum of $250 per year.

More than 2 million Americans have already used the programme to save more than $60 million in small amounts of money.