Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving. — Warren Buffett.

If you don’t assign a role to every penny that hits your bank account, you are bound to look back at the end of the month and ask yourself — “Where did all my money go?”.

Money might be difficult to come by, but it’s ever so easy to disappear.

To seamlessly assign a role to every penny of my paycheck, I have tried many financial products over the years. Each had one thing or another going for it, but it’s been unexpectedly difficult to find one that checks all the boxes.

Except for one bank account: SoFi (referral link).

SoFi has come the closest to having a full feature-set while staying zero-fee and giving a great user experience. Since I moved to SoFi, my financial health has been transformed.

In this blog post, I will tell you about some of SoFi’s best features and how they can help you “spend what is left after saving”.

Let’s get started.

What is SoFi?

SoFi is one of the most popular FinTech companies that exploded into the scene in the last 5 years.

When you sign up for a SoFi account, you get a free Checking and Saving account. Neither of the accounts comes with any pesky hidden bank fees.

There are many other FREE checking/saving accounts out there, and SoFi is nothing special.

Where SoFi stands out is the number of automated features it gives the users for free to take control of every dollar in their accounts.

Savings Vaults

Inside your SoFi Savings account, you can create vaults.

What are vaults?

Vaults allow users to save money for specific goals. Let me help illustrate with a personal example.

I have 3 vaults:

Car Payment

Rent

Emergency Fund

A part of every paycheck goes to each of the 3 vaults. At the end of every month, I can use the money from my “Car Payment” and “Rent” vaults to pay my bills. As for the “Emergency Fund” vault, it keeps growing over time.

Don’t mistake Vaults for separate bank accounts.

Vaults are just logical separation of money in your SoFi savings account. All the money stays in the same account. It’s just separated conceptually into vaults so that you can more easily visualize your saving goals.

While your money sits in your Savings accounts, until the bills come due, they will be earning a high interest rate (currently 4.5% with direct deposit), instead of earning close to 0% in a Checking account.

I have only 3 vaults, but you can go crazy with the number, given where you are in life.

Any money that’s in your Saving account, but not inside any Vault, will still be available and keep earning the full 4.5% APY.

SoFi Autopilot

If SoFi Vault sounds mediocre to you, wait until you hear how SoFi Autopilot can supercharge it.

What is SoFi Autopilot?

SoFi Autopilot automates the process of saving money and allows you to automatically assign a purpose to every dollar whenever your paycheck arrives in your Checking account.

How does it work? Let me explain with a personal example.

Every time my employer sends me a direct deposit, the following happens automatically:

$X goes to my Car vault

$Y goes to my Emergency Fund vault

$Z goes to my House/Rent vault

I get 2 paychecks every month, so the amounts X and Y are half of my monthly rent and car payment. At the end of the month, I have enough in both Vaults to pay my rent and car payment.

Once you configure SoFi Autopilot, you can set it and forget it.

When money hits your bank account, the correct proportion is pulled into the relevant vaults. The remaining stays in your Checking account, ready for you to spend.

By having SoFi Autopilot think about your saving goals at first, what you have done is essentially what Warren Buffett said:

Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving.

By saving towards your emergency fund and putting aside money for your fixed monthly expenses, you can spend the rest however you want to.

In my case, the system is slightly different, but I won’t go into the details here. If you are interested, you can check out my other blog post, My Automated Payday Routine 2024.

Closing Thoughts

Okay, folks, that’s all for today.

Thank you for your time. I hope you found it valuable.

If reading about my experience has convinced you to open a SoFi account, please consider using my referral link. It’s one of the best ways to support me, at no cost of your own.

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