This article originally appeared on our US site and has been amended for an Australian audience.

Making a savings plan is one thing. It’s another thing to stick to it.

If you’ve ever had trouble hitting a savings goal, you’re not alone.

Savings rates have not recovered to pre-Covid levels, with many households struggling to build a savings buffer. Only 30% of Australians are on track for a comfortable retirement, according to the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA).

Why do so many of us struggle to save even when we know we should?

Saving for the future can be difficult because of a cognitive bias known as hyperbolic discounting: our tendency to place greater weight on immediate satisfaction, even if focusing on the long term will have a greater payoff. This bias is why, when you get a raise, you may consider getting a new car—incurring a higher monthly payment—instead of sacking away more money each month for retirement and perhaps getting to retire several years earlier.

Feeling stressed about finances can also get you off track with your savings. While some people respond to financial stress by saving more, others respond by spendingmore in order to regain feelings of control.

Unfortunately, these shortsighted decisions on spending versus saving can have large effects on our ability to achieve our future goals, because of the enormous power of compound interest. So, let’s talk about what you can do to keep saving when you feel the urge to give up.

How to keep saving money

1) Perform a goals audit

We all should be saving for a specific reason. Sit down and list what you are saving for. If you don’t already have goals in mind, you can use techniques geared toward helping people find and articulate their financial goals.

Then, consider how you might pair up your goals to boost your savings motivation. Research suggests the most motivating financial goals may be those relating to security (for example, retirement) or self-actualisation (such as opening a business or contributing to charities). Consider how you may link some of your shorter-term goals to these bigger goals.

For instance, you may decide to couple your “savings for home repairs” with your desire to “donate to charity” by committing to donate the excess you saved for repairs to your favorite nonprofit. By ensuring your goals are well-articulated and meaningful, you can always come back to them for a dose of motivation when you feel yourself wavering.

2) Assess what you can save (and what you should save)

This step may not make me popular among the math-averse, but it’s important. When we are feeling stressed by finances, we may convince ourselves that all our current spending is more of a priority than our saving. So, start by doing a comprehensive review of your budget. Moneysmart, a Government website, also has a great Budget Planner. How much money comes in each month, how much goes out, and where does it go? You may find that you already have more money coming in than going out. This is an easy win: Commit to saving that much money each month. (You can even decide how much of it goes toward each of your financial goals.) If you don’t find a monthly surplus, that indicates you may need to go through your spending and decide where you can spend less.

I recommend giving yourself a bit of a reality check by calculating how much you need to save each month to achieve your goal in the time you want to. It’s especially eye-opening to calculate how saving more or less money each month can affect your ability to retire. Remember, it’s OK if you cannot save as much in this season of your life as you’d like. That happens to everyone. But by saving what you can now and coming back to this practice when your circumstances change, you can still make serious progress toward your goals.

3) Take it out of your hands

Once you’ve decided what you are saving for and how much you’re going to save, make your commitment as easy as possible by automating the process. If you have to decide every month to take money out of your checking and put it into your superannuation or savings, the chances are that it won’t happen at some point. You’ll forget, put it off, or maybe decide that this is the month for a treat instead. This is a no-judgment zone; we are only human, after all. However, research suggests that automating savings can help people save more than they otherwise would, so taking the extra time to automate your savings now can help you stick with your plan for months—or years—to come.

We will all struggle to save at some point or another, but the steps above can help you get yourself recommitted to saving when you’d rather call it quits.

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