I’ve been socking away money for as long as I’ve been making it. The summer of 1985, before 6 grade, I made about $50 picking potato bugs off of my stepdad's precious potato crop (we do love our potatoes in our family). He had no idea how tenacious I was going to be at 10 cents for an immature bug and 25 cents for a mature one. I was out there every day with my little plastic container filled with soapy water to dunk the little buggers in and bring them back to him for proof.
Then, at age 12, I began babysitting and I started squirreling money away by hiding bills in my books. Seriously, I would put a 20 dollar bill in one book, $5 another book, and $10 in another and so forth and so on. Years later I would be flipping through 1 of those books and have a $20 bill drop into my lap, not a bad day’s haul.
Around that same time, I started working in the kitchen of a tiny local restaurant. She paid me in cash to wash dishes and do prep for the evening's meals. I learned some valuable kitchen skills and made more money to hide in my books. It was perfect for a 12-year-old in 1986.
In 8th grade I got my 1st checking account and I even got a debit card. I felt very mature. And yet I still socked money away into strange little places in my room so that I would always have cash on hand.
That was something my dad taught me, always have a little bit of “walking around money”. I became so used to always having cash I still make sure I always have some on me. It’s saved me from many difficult situations. And, when I started buying most of my own clothes after 9th grade, saving money became even more important.
As an adult I've always had a savings account as well as the equivalent of money under my mattress. So, since this is clearly a topic near and dear to my heart, I thought I would share some of my tips and tricks on how you can save up some cash for those special little things you want in life, but are sometimes difficult to build into your monthly budget. (You do a monthly budget, right? That’ll be a conversation for another time…)
Let’s get to it:
1. Collect your change:
Tried and true. It seems so bizarre that, as I write this, our country is in a change shortage causing stores to ask that we pay with exact change or credit cards. The change in a coffee can was one of my dad’s things. Every time I went to visit him in Florida, he’d have me roll up his change into those paper tubes and we’d cash them in at the bank.
My husband and I have continued this tradition with our 1999 Sammy Sosa Cubs bottle. We’ve gotten $500 with it numerous times, and, the last time, we got $1000. That’s right. $1000. In coins. About 3 years worth. Don’t use one of those coin counting machines at a grocery store that charges you a percentage. Call your bank to see if you can bring the change there. If not, keep calling around to banks until you find one with a coin counter.
2. Put cash away each week:
Put away $1 or $100 each week, whatever you can afford. Make it a consistent amount you put away in on a specific day each week. Payday is often a good day. Put it away before you accidentally spend it!
You can figure out how much you want to have saved up by when, by dividing the dollar amount by the number of weeks until your due date. If you know that you’d like to have $500 by mid-November to buy Christmas presents, and you start at the beginning of January, you’ll need to put away about $12/week. Not too bad, right?
3. Have a separate bank accounts for different goals:
I know people with anywhere from 2 to 5 separate savings accounts. One might be for Christmas, another for that new couch, the next vacation, fun money for date nights… The possibilities are endless. Having the money in savings accounts is good if you don’t feel great having cash lying around the house.
Keep in mind that the percentage rate on most savings accounts is lower than 3%, which is the general rate of inflation. So, unless you find an account with a better rate, this is not about making money off of interest.
4. Use automatic deposits:
I love this one. I have my own personal checking account set up to automatically transfer a specific amount of money into my savings account on Mondays. That way I don’t even have to think about it. The money just moves and my savings account grows!
5. Money saving apps:
There are a number of apps and websites out there that can link to your credit and debit cards so that every time you make a purchase it rounds the amount up and deposits the extra into your app account.
I use the Acorns app, I’m not recommending it as I’m not a financial advisor, it is simply the one I’m most familiar with. The Acorns account is linked to the stock market and you can decide if you want low, moderate or high-risk investments. You can double and triple the round up, too. If you buy something for $25.75, $.25 will go into your account. If you’ve set it to double your investment it would take $.50.
It’s a great way to have small amounts that you don’t even notice get socked away for that rainy day. You can also set it up to debit a set amount of money from your bank each month in addition to your round ups. $10, $50, $100, whatever you want. Again, I like the idea of the money just moving from account to account without me having to remember.
6. Round up yourself:
You could always do this on your own. Every time you buy something round up the amount and transfer that amount into a savings account. Or add the amounts up over the week and tuck the total amount into your fire-proof safe. You can even do the monthly bulk deposit on your own. Go crazy!
7. Trade an expensive habit for savings:
This is yet another one I got from my dad. In 1986 he decided to quit smoking and decided this was an opportunity to reward himself and incentivize quitting by putting $15.00 (the amount of a carton back then) per week away in a coffee can.
What habit do you have that you could do this with? Starbucks? Could you start making your own coffee at home and put the amount of your Starbucks in savings every day? How about fast food? Heck you could even cancel your expensive gym membership and workout at home. Let’s face it, a lot of us did that already this year and could start putting that money away starting today.
8. Give it to someone you trust:
If you like some of these ideas but don’t trust yourself with access to savings or cash, you could always hand it over to someone you trust. Give them instructions, like don’t give me any money even if I ask for it unless these 3 criteria have been met. You could have a safety word that means this is a real emergency and you really need to make a withdrawal. Set up a dollar amount threshold after which you’re free to use the excess as play money. Or keep upping the threshold.
Word of warning, it isn’t really fair to put this much pressure on someone else so don’t let this be something that messes with your relationship. Don’t get mad at them when they do exactly what you asked them to do, or even if they give in to your puppy-dog eyes. The money is still your responsibility.
There you go! I hope that sparked some ideas of your own. Get creative and get saving. Money responsibility isn’t taught to all of us growing up and credit card debt is a real problem these days. Create a plan, follow through on the plan, create financial security and the ability to have some fun now and then.
If you try these and none of them seem to work, it’s probably a sign that you would benefit from getting in touch with me for some solution-focused coaching and a little digging into your relationship with money.