The idea was simple – save $3 a day and do it everyday. Actually, the idea was a bit more complicated then that but I’ve stripped it down to its bare essence. Save three lousy bucks a day. Even I can do that!

I guess with the advent of credit cards, savings has become almost nonexistent for many of us. With more bills to pay than you can shake a stick at, who has the extra money to sock away for a rainy day? Even when I had extra money, I couldn’t save it. I needed some reward for paying all my bills, so I would buy something. I deserved it, right?

And then it hit me. I’ve always been pretty good at paying bills so why don’t I treat savings like it was just another bill. It would be a form of forced savings. Of course, I would also have to institute rules on when I could use the savings. So far I’ve come up with no rules, so I haven’t used any of my savings.

So how did I institute my forced savings plan? I signed up for an account with ING Direct. ING Direct is the internet version of ING Bank in Wilmington, Delaware. Your deposits are FDIC insured with ING Direct so it’s just like working with your corner bank. I set up an account with ING Direct and linked it to my bank here in town. When I started, I set up an automatic transfer of funds from my local bank to ING Direct on the first of each month for $90. You can control the date and amount of each deposit/transfer. My savings plan was just like paying a bill each month. The transfer occurred automatically. I didn’t have to do anything. It just all happened in the background.

Saving money became so easy that I doubled the frequency of my automatic transfers to twice a month. That was easy so I increased the amount of each transfer. Now, I’m saving $8.33 a day or $250 a month. I may up the amount again to the equivalent of $10 a day. Plus I’m also getting interest on my savings.

Do you want to make money with the internet? This may be the best way that I know how. Check out ingdirect.com. I’ll have a link here soon.