Most of us have a savings account with our bank, but we also tend to have trouble putting any money into it. Here’s a quick and easy way to save a little and get a bonus in the process.

If you use a credit card from your regular bank you probably receive rewards when you use it for certain purchases (if not, check the bank web site for rewards programs). Rewards are typically awarded as points and vary with ranges from 2% to some as high as 5% of the purchase amount of the item that you’ve bought. For most people, rewards aren’t redeemed frequently and the number of reward points tends to accumulate. One of the reasons for this is that there is no plan for how to use the points. They can be redeemed for certain items on the rewards web site that usually require a large number of points, and so most folks just let them accumulate. What if we could redeem the rewards points for cash, deposit the cash in our savings, and receive an immediate return (a second reward)? That would be a great way to use the rewards we’re receiving.

In most cases, this plan can be carried out with a few clicks on our banks’ rewards web site. Navigate to the rewards web site and select redeem rewards. Then select redeem for cash. In most cases there will be an option to deposit the cash amount into your savings account with an immediate bonus of up to 10% of the amount being deposited. This is an immediate return on investment that the bank awards us for depositing the amount instead of applying it to a credit card balance or redeeming the points for an item. The amount plus the bonus are immediately added to our savings account and the points have been redeemed and removed from the total of our reward points. Now we have actually put a little into our savings, and gotten a reward for doing it.

Thanks for reading!