Finding the money at the end of the month to save after you have paid all of your bills and incidentals can be difficult. It seems your expenses often rise to meet your available cash. Setting up an automatic savings plan, however, can make it easier.

The easiest way to save automatically is to direct deposit a portion of your monthly paycheck into your savings account(s). Many employers allow you to allocate different amounts or percentages of your income each month to separate accounts. By pulling the money out of your paycheck before you even receive it, you don’t have the chance to miss it in your checking account.

When putting your savings on autopilot, it’s wise to differentiate the various types of savings. You need to save for retirement, emergencies and non-emergency large expenses. To automatically save for retirement, you can arrange to have a percentage or specific amount of your monthly income withheld for your 401(k) plan or directly deposited into an Individual Retirement Account (IRA). To save for emergencies, direct funds into a high-yield savings account or money market account. Finally, to save for large expenses, you can choose between traditional savings accounts and money market accounts.

Here is an example of how you could allocate your monthly paycheck. Say you receive $2,500 a month after taxes. You could direct 10% ($250) into your retirement account, 10% ($250) into your emergency savings fund and 5% ($125) into a non-emergency savings account. That would leave you with 75% ($1,875) of your paycheck, which would be directly deposited into your checking account to pay your monthly bills and incidentals. It’s best to work with percentages rather than fixed amounts because as your income rises, your savings contributions will too. This will allow you to build even more savings without feeling deprived of additional income.

If you don’t have the option of direct deposit through your employer, you can create a similar arrangement using automatic account transfers and online banking. Most major banks allow customers to link checking, savings and money market accounts for easy, immediate transfers. If you know that you will deposit your paycheck into your checking account on a certain day each month, you can schedule automatic transfers between checking and savings accounts. If you’re paycheck deposit is less predictable, you can plan to manually transfer the funds as soon as your check clears online.

Another option for automatic savings is to take advantage of checking accounts that make you save. With these accounts, money is automatically transferred into your savings account when you make check card purchases. Bank of America (Stock Quote: BAC) has the “Keep the Change” program, which rounds up each purchase you make with your debit card to the nearest dollar and transfers the difference into savings. Wachovia Bank (Stock Quote: WB) has a similar program called “Way2Save,” which transfer $1 for every debit purchase from your checking into savings. Both programs also offer additional incentives. With these types of accounts you probably won’t build a lot of saving, but in this economy even a little is better than nothing at all.

— For more ways to save, spend, invest and borrow, visit MainStreet.com.