It's not your imagination: your paycheck isn't going as far as it used to.
Even a routine stop at the pump hurts more today than a year ago. The price of gasoline alone rose 27.4% from August 2025 to August 2026, according to the latest Consumer Price Index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Fortunately, there are ways to stretch your paycheck without necessarily earning more. Here are four practical moves to help your money work harder without changing how you live.
Acorns
Auto-invest your spare change 1. Auto-invest your spare change
One way you could offset these high prices is by making sure the money you’re already spending earns something back.
Consider using cash-back credit cards for expenses like groceries, gas and recurring bills, since many offer 2% to 5% cash back on those categories.
You can even double up on these savings by using an automated round-up investing app.
Platforms like Acorns allow you to link your debit or credit card and automatically invest your spare change.
Buy groceries for $42.30, and Acorns rounds it up to $43, investing the extra 70 cents in a low-cost diversified portfolio.
While the amounts may seem small, those tiny investments can add up over time, especially if they happen consistently in the background.
Acorns
Auto-invest your spare change 2. Set up recurring investments
Many financial experts recommend setting aside 10% to 15% of your gross income for retirement savings. With the cost of everything else climbing, that's getting harder and harder to hit.
Round-ups are a good start, but they only add up as fast as you spend. If you want savings that don't depend on how many purchases you make in a given week, it helps to put a small, consistent amount on autopilot instead.
Many robo-advisors let you schedule contributions ahead of time with varying minimums. With Acorns, you can set up recurring investments for as little as $5 a day, week or month.
The app also matches you with one of five automated portfolios built around your goals and risk tolerance.
Starting small still means you're contributing at regular intervals and benefiting from dollar-cost averaging, and you can adjust the amount any time your income or expenses change — whether that's a raise or one less bill on your plate.
It takes about three minutes to set up, and as a Moneywise reader, you get a $20 bonus once you set up a recurring deposit.
Acorns
Auto-invest your spare change 3. Stop paying to keep your own money
Many traditional banks still charge monthly maintenance fees, ATM fees, and overdraft fees, sometimes $30 or more per incident, just for holding your checking balance. Meanwhile, that same balance is often earning close to 0% interest while it sits there.
You don't need to overhaul your whole banking setup to fix this. It can help to move even a portion of your everyday spending money — the part that isn't earning anything where it is — to an account that doesn't charge you to use it.
Acorns Checking, for example, doesn't charge overdraft fees, maintenance fees, or ATM fees at over 55,000 fee-free ATMs nationwide.
Linking an Acorns debit card to your account also means your everyday purchases can round up automatically. With a standard linked card, that spare change has to add up to $5 before it actually gets invested.
With an Acorns debit card, you can also earn bonus investments just for shopping at brands you probably already use, like Chevron, Kohl's, Apple and Expedia — no extra effort beyond swiping a card that's already in your wallet.
Acorns
Auto-invest your spare change 4. Your IRA can earn a bonus too
If you're contributing to a Traditional or Roth IRA on your own, no one's matching those contributions.
IRAs you open yourself don't come with a built-in match, since no employer contributes on your behalf the way a 401(k) might.
Some platforms have started closing that gap. Acorns Later offers Traditional, Roth and SEP IRA options, and new contributions get matched 3% on the Gold plan and 1% on Silver.
Max out your annual contribution, and that match alone adds an extra $225, on top of whatever you were already planning to save.
The only catch is you'll need to leave the money in the account for four years to keep the match, so it's built for people investing for the long haul, not a quick top-up.
It takes the same few minutes to set up as a regular investment account, and the portfolio is automatically chosen and adjusted based on your age and timeline to retirement, so you don't have to manage anything.
Acorns
Auto-invest your spare change Start growing your paycheck today
Every dollar sitting idle instead of invested is a dollar that isn't helping your paycheck go further.
Take a few minutes to set up your Acorns account today and start putting your everyday spending to work.
Acorns
Auto-invest your spare change
