Keep the Change is a savings program from Bank of America that automatically rounds up your debit card purchases to the nearest dollar and moves the difference into your savings account. If you buy a coffee for $4.35, the bank rounds the transaction to $5.00 and transfers the extra $0.65 into savings. It runs quietly in the background, turning everyday spending into small, automatic deposits.
How the Rounding Works
Every time you use your Bank of America debit card for a purchase, the program calculates the gap between what you spent and the next whole dollar. A $12.10 grocery run generates a $0.90 transfer. A $47.99 tank of gas generates a $0.01 transfer. The amounts are tiny on any single purchase, but they accumulate over dozens of transactions each month.
Those round-ups don’t transfer one by one. Bank of America accumulates your round-ups throughout the day and moves the total from your checking account to your enrolled savings account in a single daily transfer. On your statement, you’ll see a line item for the day’s combined round-up amount rather than individual pennies attached to each swipe.
How much you actually save depends entirely on how often you use your debit card. Someone who makes 30 debit purchases a month with an average round-up of about $0.50 would transfer roughly $15 a month, or around $180 a year. That’s not life-changing money, but it’s $180 you likely wouldn’t have set aside otherwise.
Which Accounts and Cards Qualify
Keep the Change works only with a Mastercard or Visa debit card linked to your Bank of America checking account. Credit card purchases, ATM withdrawals, and online bill payments processed outside the debit card network don’t trigger round-ups. The program also isn’t available for small business debit cards, so it’s designed strictly for personal banking customers.
You need both a Bank of America checking account and a Bank of America savings account to enroll. The checking account is where the round-ups are debited, and the savings account is where they land. If you don’t already have a savings account with Bank of America, you’d need to open one before the program can function.
How to Enroll
You can sign up for Keep the Change through Bank of America’s online banking portal or mobile app. The enrollment process links your debit card to the savings account you choose. Once activated, every qualifying debit card purchase starts generating round-ups automatically. There’s no fee to enroll, and you can turn the feature off at any time if you decide you’d rather manage transfers yourself.
What to Watch For
Because the round-ups pull from your checking account, the program adds small extra debits on top of your normal spending. If your checking balance is tight, those transfers could push you closer to zero than you expect. It’s worth keeping a small buffer in checking so the daily round-up transfers don’t create overdraft risk.
Also keep in mind that the savings account receiving your round-ups may carry a monthly maintenance fee if you don’t meet certain balance thresholds. Bank of America’s standard savings account charges a monthly fee unless you maintain a minimum daily balance or meet other qualifying criteria. If you’re saving $15 a month in round-ups but paying a monthly fee on the savings account, the math works against you. Make sure you understand the fee structure on your specific savings account before relying on Keep the Change as your primary savings strategy.
How Much You Can Realistically Save
The program’s value is more about building a savings habit than generating significant wealth. Since each round-up maxes out at $0.99 per transaction, even heavy debit card users are unlikely to transfer more than $30 to $50 per month. Over a year, that puts most people in the $150 to $500 range.
If you want to accelerate your savings beyond what round-ups can do, Bank of America also lets you set up recurring automatic transfers from checking to savings on a schedule you choose. You could pair Keep the Change with a fixed weekly or monthly transfer to get both the passive round-up savings and a more substantial amount moving into your account on a predictable basis. The round-ups work best as a supplement, not a replacement for intentional saving.