Concept
Money automation
Money automation is Sethi's machine for running a financial life in an hour a month: standing orders dated on payday move the investment and savings amounts before you see them, every bill is paid by direct debit, and the credit card pays its full statement automatically.
The plan from the conscious spending plan only survives if it runs without you. On the day the salary lands, one standing order moves the investment amount to the investment account, another moves the savings amount to a card-free savings account at a different bank, and the bills leave by direct debit from what remains. What is left is the guilt-free bucket, the only money that ever needs a decision. Three details matter. The transfers are dated on the salary day, not the first of the month, because a transfer that fires before the money lands bounces and a bounced order is quietly disabled. The credit card is set to pay in full every month, which prevents most consumer debt with a single setting. And the savings account has no card and no app shortcut, because distance is the feature. Once built, the system is checked monthly and otherwise left alone; the check is whether the transfers fired, not whether to make them.
A real-life example
Selin, a pharmacist in Antalya, spends a Sunday afternoon on it: salary on the fifteenth, so standing orders on the fifteenth for 10 percent to a fund at another bank and 6 percent to a card-free savings account; utilities on direct debit; the card on full autopay; the savings bank's app deleted from her phone. In April she is ill for two weeks and does not think about money once. In May everything has moved exactly as in March.
How to use it
- 1Date every transfer on the day the salary lands, never the first of the month.
- 2Set the credit card to pay its full statement automatically.
- 3Keep savings at a different bank with no card; check monthly that the transfers fired.