By Karen Bennett, Bankrate.com

The thought of saving money may feel overwhelming, especially if you have nothing saved and struggle to afford necessities like rent and groceries.

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If you don’t have a healthy emergency fund, you’re not alone. In fact, only 30% of Americans would pay a $1,000 emergency expense from savings, a recent Bankrate survey found. Other survey respondents said they’d go into debt to afford such an expense through credit cards or personal loans.

Saving certainly isn’t easy and we won’t pretend it is — but here are some practical steps you can take to get started.

1. Set clear savings goals

The key to successful saving is knowing what you’re saving for. Whether it’s an emergency fund, a down payment on a house or a dream vacation, having specific goals can keep you motivated and on track.

Start by deciding upon your savings goals, giving them names (like “new car” or “wedding”), and setting deadlines for when you want to achieve them. Then, calculate how much you need to save each month to reach your target amount by your deadline.

Your first goal should probably be to save for emergencies

Whether you’re hit with a curveball in the form of a car repair, medical bill or a job loss, having an emergency fund — with three to six months of living expenses — can help you weather financial storms without going into costly debt.

2. Create a budget that works for you

At its core, a budget is simply a plan for making sure you’re spending less than you earn. In addition to helping you pay your bills on time and cover essential expenses, a budget can help you accomplish things like saving money and paying down debt. The key is finding a budgeting method that works for your lifestyle and personality.

Popular budget methods include:

50/30/20 budget: To make this budget, you set aside 50% of your income to needs, 30% to wants and 20% to savings.
Zero-based budget: This budget method assigns a purpose to every dollar of your take-home pay — which can include a category for savings.

Whatever budgeting strategy you choose to follow, it’ll involve tracking where your money goes each month. This gives you the chance to find areas to cut spending. A digital budgeting app — such as YNAB or Rocket Money — can come in handy by tracking your spending and saving automatically.

3. Tackle high-interest debt

While it might not feel like paying off debt is helping you save, eliminating costly interest charges from carrying a balance can free up money to put toward your goals.

According to a recent Bankrate survey, nearly half of American credit cardholders carry a balance from month to month, with the average APR just under 20%.

Let’s say you have a $5,000 credit card balance with a 20% APR. Even if you pay $300 per month, you’ll end up paying an extra $906 in interest before reaching a zero balance. That’s money that could be going into your savings instead.

4. Automate your savings

One of the easiest ways to save more consistently? Make it automatic. Set up recurring transfers from your checking account to your savings account each payday, so you’re saving without even thinking about it.

Many banks also offer tools like round-up programs, which automatically round your debit card purchases to the nearest dollar and transfer the spare change to your savings. Over time, those small amounts can really add up.

You can also take advantage of money-saving apps like Oportun or Qapital, which can analyze your spending habits and automatically move small amounts of money into your savings when you can afford it.

Pro tip: Use multiple savings accounts

“Opening separate savings accounts for each of your goals can help you track your progress and stay organized. Plus, you can easily shift your money to the account with the higher interest rate to maximize your earnings,” says Hanna Horvath, CFP and Bankrate Managing Editor. You can also find a savings account that lets you divvy up your savings into goals or buckets, so you can keep one savings account but track your savings goal separately. Ally Bank and SoFi Bank are two online banks that offer this feature.

5. Separate your spending and saving

If you’re just getting started with saving money, consider opening up a savings account at a different bank from where you keep your checking account. This may help to create a psychological barrier between the money you have set aside for spending versus savings, making it less likely you’ll raid your savings on a whim.

“When you open your bank account app and your checking and savings numbers are in there, you kind of add those numbers together, and you’re like, ‘Oh, that’s how much money I have to spend,’” says Pamela Capalad, a certified financial planner and owner of Get Shameless Inc. “But if your bank accounts are at separate institutions — and better yet if your savings account is a high yield savings account — it’s out of sight, out of mind and your savings will grow.”

The bottom line

Starting to save can feel daunting, but the most important thing is to just start. No amount is too small, and no goal is too insignificant. Ways to begin include setting clear goals, creating a budget, tackling debt and automating your savings. Keeping your checking and savings accounts at different banks can also help eliminate the temptation to dip into savings for nonessentials.

Everyone’s financial journey is different. Stay open to trying new savings strategies and tools until you find the ones that work best for your situation and personality.

Key takeaways

The first step to saving is setting specific, achievable goals and tracking your progress using a digital budgeting tool, spreadsheet or pen and paper.
Following a budget can help you identify ways you can add to savings as well as pay down debt.
Ways to help you save more consistently include keeping your spending money separate from your savings, as well as automatically transferring money to savings each paycheck.

©2026 Bankrate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By BILL BARROW and JOSH BOAK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump used his social media account to share a video about election conspiracy theories that includes a racist depiction of former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama, as primates in a jungle.

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The Republican president’s Thursday night post immediately drew backlash for its treatment of the nation’s first Black president and first lady. It was part of a flurry of social media activity that amplified Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, despite courts around the country and a Trump attorney general from his first term finding no evidence of fraud that could have affected the outcome.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt rejected criticism of the post that depicted the Obamas, who are Democrats. An Obama spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

Nearly all of the 62-second clip, which was among dozens of Truth Social posts from Trump overnight, appears to be from a conservative video alleging deliberate tampering with voting machines in battleground states as the 2020 presidential votes were tallied. At the 60-second mark is a quick scene of two primates, with the Obamas’ smiling faces imposed on them.

Those frames were taken from a longer video, previously circulated by an influential conservative meme maker. It shows Trump as “King of the Jungle” and depicts a range of Democratic leaders as animals, including Joe Biden, who is white, as a primate eating a banana.

“This is from an internet meme video depicting President Trump as the King of the Jungle and Democrats as characters from the Lion King,” Leavitt said by text, referring to Disney’s 1994 feature film. “Please stop the fake outrage and report on something today that actually matters to the American public.”

Trump did not comment on the video in his post.

The group Republicans Against Trump, a frequent social media critic of the president, criticized the post and its “racist image.”

“There’s no bottom,” the group wrote.

Trump and the official White House social media accounts frequently repost memes and artificial intelligence-generated videos. As Leavitt did Friday, Trump aides typically dismiss critiques and cast the images as humorous.

Trump also has a long history of intensely personal criticism of the Obamas and of using incendiary, sometimes racist, rhetoric.

In his 2024 campaign, Trump said immigrants were “poisoning the blood of our country,” language similar to what Adolf Hitler said to dehumanize Jews in Nazi Germany.

During his first White House term, Trump referred to a swath of developing nations that are majority Black as “shithole countries.” He initially denied using the slur but admitted in December 2025 that he did say it.

When Obama was in the White House, Trump advanced the false claims that the 44th president, who was born in Hawaii, was born in Kenya and was constitutionally ineligible to serve. Trump, in interviews that helped endear him to many conservative voters, repeatedly demanded that Obama produce birth records and prove he was a “natural-born citizen” as required to become president.

Obama eventually released his Hawaii records. Trump finally acknowledged during his 2016 campaign, after having won the Republican nomination, that Obama was born in Hawaii. But he immediately said, falsely, that his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton started those birtherism attacks on Obama.

By HOWARD FENDRICH, Associated Press National Writer

MILAN (AP) — An unprecedented four-site, dual-cauldron Winter Olympics opening ceremony replete with references to Italian icons and culture — plus American pop diva Mariah Carey — was scheduled to officially start the Milan Cortina Games on Friday as the sports spectacle returns to a nation that last hosted the event 20 years ago.

This is the most spread-out Olympics — Summer or Winter — in history, with competition venues dotting an area of about 8,500 square miles, roughly the size of the entire state of New Jersey.

The main hub Friday is in Milan at San Siro soccer stadium, which is home to Serie A titans AC Milan and Inter Milan, opened a century ago and is due to be razed and replaced in the next few years. There also will be three other places where athletes can march, some carrying their country’s flag: Cortina d’Ampezzo in the heart of the Dolomite mountains; Livigno in the Alps; Predazzo in the autonomous province of Trento.

Workers drive a golf buggy outside a compound next to the San Siro Stadium during rehearsals for the opening ceremony of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, at , in Milan, Italy, Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

That allows up-in-the-mountains sports such as Alpine skiing, bobsled, curling and snowboarding to be represented in the Parade of Nations without needing to make the several-hours-long trek to Milan, the country’s financial capital, and back.

For good measure, the Feb. 22 closing ceremony will be held in yet another locale, Verona, where Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” was set.

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Another symbol of how far-flung things are this time: Instead of the usual one cauldron that is lit and burns throughout the Olympics, there will be two, both intended as an homage to Leonardo da Vinci’s geometric studies. One is in Milan, 2½ miles (4 kilometers) from San Siro, and the other is going to be 250 miles away in Cortina.

The people given the honor of lighting both was a closely guarded secret, as is usually the case at any Olympics. At the Turin Winter Games in 2006, it was Italian cross-country skier Stefania Belmondo.

Other links to Italy’s heritage scheduled to be a part of Friday’s festivities include a performance by tenor Andrea Bocelli; classically trained dancers from the academy of the famed Milan opera house, Teatro alla Scala; a tribute to the late fashion designer Giorgio Armani, who died last year at 91. Armani designed the Olympic and Paralympic uniforms for the Italian national team for decades, and was a personal friend of the former president of the Italian National Olympic Committee, Giovanni Malagò.

Plenty more planned for Friday was being kept under wraps by organizers who said they sought to convey themes of harmony and peace, seeking to represent the city-mountain dichotomy of the particularly unusual setup for these Olympics while also trying to appeal to a sense of unity at a time of global tensions.

Another unknown: What sort of reception would greet U.S. Vice President JD Vance when he attended the ceremony in Milan? And what about the American athletes?

When new International Olympic Committee President Kirsty Coventry was asked this week what sort of greeting the U.S. delegation would get when they enter San Siro in the Parade of Nations, she replied: “I hope the opening ceremony is seen by everyone as an opportunity to be respectful.”

Associated Press writer Colleen Barry contributed to this report.

By GIADA ZAMPANO and NICCOLÒ LUPONE, Associated Press

MILAN (AP) — Italy has ramped up security ahead of the opening ceremony of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics Friday, with thousands of agents protecting athletes, spectators and global leaders at locations spanning from Milan to the Dolomites.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s Cabinet on Thursday approved a security decree including stricter measures to counter violent protests, just ahead of fresh demonstrations planned around the opening ceremony. Opposition lawmakers criticized the measure, saying it muzzles freedom of expression.

While some preliminary hockey and curling events started on Wednesday, the Games officially kick off with the opening ceremony at Milan’s San Siro Stadium on Friday evening, featuring global music stars and high-profile guests.

Around 6,000 security personnel will be deployed across the Olympic sites during the Games, including bomb disposal experts, snipers and counter-terrorism units, Italian authorities said.

Coordinating security across multiple venues

Security at the Milan Games are particularly complicated because this is the most geographically dispersed in Olympics history, with events spread across Milan to three clusters in the mountains.

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Italian police will rely on a network of operations centers to manage security and react to alerts quickly, and share information between them. The Associated Press on Thursday toured the main operations center in Milan, where dozens of police officers sat in front of computers and giant screens and kept eyes on various locations.

“The aim is to monitor in real time, in an absolutely timely and immediate manner, what is happening across the territory,” Sabrina Pane, Milan’s deputy prefect, told the AP. “We can do this thanks to a very fast, constant flow of information.

Other centers are located in Bolzano, Trento, Venice, Verona, Belluno, Sondrio and Varese, where some Games venues are located.

Cross-border operations

Foreign police officers, as well as personnel from security agencies Interpol and Europol, will work with Italy’s public security department to quickly handle critical situations requiring international cooperation.

On Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Antonio Tajani revealed that Italian police had already foiled a series of Russian-linked cyberattacks targeting several foreign ministry offices, as well as websites linked to the Winter Olympics and hotels in Cortina.

Interforce teams are operating around the clock to monitor both the territory and the internet in an effort to prevent further cyberattacks.

“We are committed to a dual approach,” said chief police commissioner Luisa Massaro. “The first is the protection of critical computerized infrastructure. The second is web monitoring.”

Last week, news that a unit of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would be present during the Winter Games set off concerns and protests across Italy, where people expressed outrage at the inclusion of an agency that has dominated headlines for leading the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Homeland Security Investigations, a unit within ICE that focuses on cross-border crimes, frequently sends its officers to overseas events like the Olympics to assist with security. HSI officers are separate from the ICE arm at the forefront of the immigration crackdown known as Enforcement and Removal Operations, and there was no indication ERO officers were being sent to Italy.

Hundreds of protesters gathered on Saturday in Milan to voice opposition to the security force — both the entry of its agents to Italy and their deportation actions in the U.S. Italy’s Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi told parliament this week that ICE agents would only have an advisory role and would not operate on Italian territory. ICE’s unit will function solely within U.S. diplomatic missions, he said.

Protests against ICE unit

That hasn’t completely quelled discontent. At least three rallies were set to take place in Milan on Friday before the opening ceremony, including two targeting ICE’s deployment during the Games.

Protesters walk with signs during a demonstration against ICE organized by students at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Milan, Italy, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Dozens of students gathered Friday morning at Milan’s Leonardo da Vinci plaza to protest, blowing whistles and shouting “We don’t want ICE in our city!” as they marched under drifting clouds of pink smoke.

“It’s not only that I don’t like what they are doing to immigrants, I also don’t like what they are doing to protesters,” said Andrea Cucuzza, 18. “That’s why we are protesting. They don’t like manifestations, protests? Then we are doing one.”

Under the new security rules introduced by the government decree, police are allowed to detain people for up to 12 hours when there are reasonable grounds to believe they may act as agitators and disrupt peaceful protests. The decree takes immediate effect upon publication in the government’s official gazette.

Center-left opposition lawmakers strongly criticized the measure, saying they impose dangerous limitations to freedom of expression and exploit security worries around the Olympics to toughen state control over ordinary citizens. But the government holds a majority in parliament, ensuring the decree’s ratification before the 60-day deadline.

The move also comes several days after violent clashes between police and demonstrators erupted in the northern city of Turin. Tens of thousands of people gathered Saturday to protest the December eviction of a community center that had been occupied by leftist activists for three decades.

That peaceful demonstration turned violent when a small group of masked protesters started attacking police officers, pushing Meloni’s conservative government to speed up approval of a security package that had been discussed for months.

___

Zampano reported from Rome. Associated Press writer María Teresa Hernández reported from Milan.

___

AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics