Round-up savings.
In plain English
Round-up savings works by treating every purchase as if it cost the next whole dollar and sweeping the leftover change into a separate account. A 4.30 dollar coffee moves 70 cents. The amounts are small enough that most people never feel them leave, which is the entire point: the saving happens without a decision. Round-ups build a habit rather than a retirement plan, and any monthly fee attached has to be weighed against how little the feature typically moves.
01Why it matters
Round-ups are worth what they actually transfer, so the honest comparison is the yearly total moved against any fee charged for moving it.
02The math, step by step
Say 40 card purchases a month round up an average of 55 cents each. That is 22 dollars a month, 264 dollars a year. If the app charges 3 dollars a month, 36 dollars a year, the fee eats about 14 percent of everything the feature saved.
Illustrative example. The amounts here are hypothetical, chosen to show how the math works, not real quoted rates or figures.
03What this is NOT
It is not a savings plan. Round-ups are tied to spending, so they save more in a heavy spending month and nothing in a quiet one. A plan starts from income and a target. Round-ups are a supplement measured in hundreds a year, not thousands.
04Receipts
Every figure on this page is sourced to a primary document. Tap to open the original.
Plain-English answers from our glossary. Receipts included. Never advice.
Educational tool. Answers come only from ClearMoneySchool's published glossary and are not advice. Why we never give advice