Save to Meet Your Goals
“Part 3 of the Money Management for Neurodiverts Series”
Author: Chris Kinion
Date: May 21, 2026
Disclaimer: "I am not a licensed financial advisor. The information on this site is for educational purposes only and should not be considered personal financial advice. All investments involve risk, and all decisions are made at your own risk."
Part 2: Budget to Meet Your Goals
Part 3: Save to Meet Your Goals
Part 4: Invest to Meet Your Goals
Part 5: Protect Yourself to Meet Your Goals
One of the most undervalued strengths of autistic individuals is the preference for simplicity. It works its way into almost every area of our lives: the way we dress, the way we style our hair, our mode of transportation, the food we eat, the company we keep, even the music we listen to. We trend towards simpler things. Too much stimulation from too many sources overwhelms us.
To compare this to the previous article in this series, I advise setting up multiple accounts and automatic payments. It seems complicated, but really requires a bit of effort (more or less, depending on your situation) to put a fairly simple system into action. Once established, it takes a great deal of cognitive load (thinking and emotional energy) off your shoulders and back into your life - where it belongs!
Which brings us back to our imaginary AuDHD young adult named Sarah. She lives on her own, loves coffee with her friends and getting her nails done. Having followed our advice in creating a budget, opening checking and savings accounts and automating where her money goes, she gets the impression that her savings just sits there and does nothing.
Saving is the oldest and simplest way to meet your goals. To help Sarah, we will name those goals and assign a savings plan to them.
Savings addresses three goals from our original post:
Be able to pay for normal big expenses
Be able to pay for surprise expenses
Have savings for when you can’t or don’t work
Let’s examine these goals as they relate to real life.
Real Estate
For most people, the single largest expense in their lifetime is buying a house. A house in good working condition also represents a significant portion of most people’s net worth (the dollar amount of the value of stuff people own minus the value of what people owe).
Deciding if you should purchase a home rather than rent warrants a separate discussion. But the only way to even get started - should you choose this path - requires thousands of dollars for closing costs, a down payment (if you borrow), or the full purchase amount. You then have to pay the mortgage, taxes, insurance, maintenance and upkeep of the home after the purchase is completed. All properties will surprise you with random maintenance and repair costs.
Only savings allow you to manage all these things in a financially healthy way. Owning real estate requires you to pay for normal, large regular and surprise expenses. You can do it if you have the income and the savings to match.
Automobiles
For many Americans, a car or truck is their second largest purchase and expense. Unlike homes, which usually keep or improve their value over time, the vast majority of vehicles lose value over time. Plus, the more you use it, the less it’s worth. When you buy a vehicle, you will use it for transportation and sell it for far less than what you bought it for.
Vehicles are an expense, not an investment. Even for the wealthy.
This will not bother an autistic person that understands this principle: buy a used car and get the same use for less. A salesperson may tell you otherwise; they just want you to over-pay for a new car. The moment you drive a new car off the lot, it becomes used - and worth a LOT less!
If you saved enough money to buy a new car in cash - and it doesn’t change your financial situation - only then should you even consider it. Ramit Sethi and Dave Ramsey have competing but not mutually exclusive philosophies on buying a new car. I think Dave Ramsey’s perspective is simpler.
Like homes, automobiles come with routine and surprise expenses. Ramit Sethi gives a great perspective on all the “phantom” costs involved. Things break, and you have to have insurance. To buy a car and maintain it stress-free, you need to match your income and savings to the vehicle.
Cell Phones
Even worse than automobiles, cell phones lose most of their value quickly. A $1,000 phone from five years ago might be worth $200 today. Most used cell phones more than three years old fetch less than $50 - if you can sell them at all.
Furthermore, many cell phone providers will charge you $100 or $200 above retail and hide that fact by putting you on a “payment plan”, forcing you to 1) keep your service with them, and 2) pay them more for a product that is worth less every day you have it! They also sell you the phone at the same price whether you make payments on it or not. See for yourself: go to any major cell phone service provider and compare their phone prices to those on Amazon or the manufacturer’s website.
You can avoid this rip-off by using a savings account and buying your cell phone outright from a reputable seller.
Unemployment and Disability
The last scenario - when you can’t or don’t work - is arguably the hardest to talk about. Every human life is different: we will all stop earning money eventually, but we cannot predict how or when.
You could work until you can retire. You could get sick and not be able to work. You could lose a job and have a hard time finding a replacement. Neurotypical people experience all these life events; autistic people experience these events more frequently.
To prepare for this eventuality, you will need savings (Part 3 of this series), investments (Part 4 of this series) and insurance (Part 5 of this series).
Conventional wisdom states that you should plan for the worst and hope for the best. At this point, you might feel a little overwhelmed. Using Sarah as our example, let’s simplify this process.
Set up a savings plan with accounts and buckets
From our last post, Sarah decided to build her savings three ways:
Over-contribute to recurring expenses (which we discussed in Part 2 )
Add money to a savings account as a regular expense (which we will discuss now)
Increase regular contributions to an investment account. (which we will discuss in Part 4)
Sarah chose Ally as her bank. Like Capital One, Ally offers free savings, checking and investment accounts, online banking, and higher than typical interest rates on her savings accounts. Also, like Capital One’s “360 Savings” account, Ally offers “buckets,” which allow her to organize the savings inside each of her savings accounts.
Sarah opened two savings accounts: One for large and surprise expenses and another for emergencies.
She defined large and surprise expenses to include:
Home and automobile maintenance
Gifting at holidays
The deductibles for home/renters, health, and automobile insurance
Replacing her cell phone
Vet bills
Travel
These expenses might show up a few times a year.
She defined emergencies as one of these conditions:
Unemployment beyond the savings in her recurring account
Major expenses not covered by insurance after the deductible is met
Emergency travel or crisis (like a funeral)
Sarah figured she would like to eventually have $12,000 in her emergency fund, which is one fourth (three months) of her annual income of $30,000.
With a little guidance from customer service, she was able to automate transfers from her checking account into her large/surprise savings account with a bucket and dollar amount for each category. Sarah figured the emergency savings account would not need buckets, so the transfers are simpler for that account.
So her monthly transfers look like this:
$20 Gifts
$90 Deductibles
$40 Phone
$40 Vet
$40 Travel
$20 Emergency
Sarah also decided that once she saved $1,000 in her deductible bucket, she would put that money towards her emergency fund. She also set goals for her other buckets to do the same once they reach a certain level. She has the money in case she needs to spend it, not because she will spend it.
Sarah also decided that once she saved $1,000 in her deductible bucket, she would put that money towards her emergency fund. She also set goals for her other buckets to do the same once they reach a certain level. She has the money in case she needs to spend it, not because she will spend it.
Shopping for savings accounts
Savings shouldn’t cost you, it should reward you. Some banks and credit unions will charge you monthly maintenance fees, low balance fees, fees for paper statements, and even inactivity fees (if you just leave your money alone and let it grow!)
Savings accounts have evolved over time and are not meant for a lot of withdrawals. Know what your bank’s limits are and avoid the limits, fees and penalties they may impose if you make too many.
Also look for fees on using your money in other ways: what kinds of fees does your bank or credit union impose on external transfers, cashiers checks and wires?
In recent decades, many banks and credit unions started paying fractions of a percentage rate in interest. Given that the cost of living (inflation) has been higher than 2.5% each year since COVID, keeping any amount of cash in that kind of account means you’re losing value. Even though the point of a savings account is not to grow your money (like an investment account), you don’t want to lose value, either!
Wherever you choose to bank, make sure it is insured. Always verify that:
Your bank is FDIC insured
Your credit union is NCUA insured
This protects your deposits if the institution fails.
Other, fine points to consider: Is the bank’s app easy to use (and available for your phone)? Does the bank make moving money difficult? Can you schedule and automate transactions and notifications? Speak with customer service or a trusted friend that already banks there and see what they say. Consider using one of Ramit Sethi's recommendations.
Looking ahead
Sarah chose to keep all her accounts at one bank in order to use only one app from her phone to manage all her money. You may find it easier to automatically save when your account is at another institution. Most importantly, you need a system that works for you, not against you.
You’ll also notice that even though a savings account earns interest, it’s there to keep value, not grow it. To make your money really work for you, you will need to step into the world of investing. We’ll discuss this in the next post, “Invest to Meet Your Goals.”
You’ll also notice that I mentioned insurance. Some are legal requirements in the U.S.; others are important to have. We’ll discuss this and other considerations in the final post of this series, “Protect Yourself to Meet Your Goals.”
Until then, happy saving!
