January 26th, 2006 - Pickle jar, part II
Last March, I wrote about my pickle jar savings. By Christmas, the jar wasn’t only about 2/3rds full but was so heavy I worried about it causing stress on the table where it sits. (Michael: It’s the old bedside table/cupboard from childhood. Yes, I’ve had the exact same bedside table all of my life except when I lived at college and in KY. I love it!) So I decided to count the money (something else I’ve loved since childhood. It was always a treat when Dad got out his small change box and I got to count and roll the coins with him!) and put it in a safer place (a giant plastic Eagles coin container that sits on the floor).
Before finding back the first post about the jar, I thought I’d had since before Maggie, but apparently we started it in January, about a year ago. (Initial funding, however, was from a small blue bottle that had been collecting for a while, probably less than $20). Into the jar has gone
* change (from household spending, my personal spending money, and occasionally from Eric)
* rebates (ranging from 99cents to tax filing rebates of $20 or so)
* Discover cash back ($20 about every 6 weeks)
* interest from savings accounts
* change found on the ground
* budget roundings (this one’s hard to explain–I track my budget in Quicken then transfer the amount over/under for the month into a spreadsheet. For the spreadsheet, I round everything. So if we had $42.55 left in an area, it’s written as $42. If we were over $42.55, I wrote down -$43. This small amounts of rounding add up to about $100 each year.)
We had over $800 in the pickle jar!!!!! Since that was all in just one year, we really could save up for an Alaska trip in 10 years! woohoo!!!!
Financial experts say that this method of saving is a bad idea, because you should be discplined and have savings as part of your budget. Depending on the person, however, I believe it can be a good idea. For us it works because I budget every dollar I can. If we didn’t put this money in the pickle jar, it would be budgeted monthly into other categories. I know because (except for the change) we used to budget it. The money went towards the DRiP accounts, the mortgage or other stuff. We simply wouldn’t consciously save $800/year towards a trip to Alaska; it’s too frivolous. But we can save penny by penny by unexpected amount.
January 2nd, 2007 at 12:31 pm EST
[…] Other ways: reduce groceries, household, and personal spending money. [We’d already committed to reductions elsewhere for the original payment.] Pickle jar fund (about $1200 is all; we didn’t put in nearly as much this year). Splitting testing money (I supervise tests like the ACT about 5 times a year; the pay used to be split between us adults for spending money. Now 50% will go towards debt. We still need the spending money portion–it’s not exactly a fun job.). Money from rewards sites will towards household instead of in our pockets (not much currently, but I might do a bit more on this vein). Christmas money goes towards household (we had a giftcard to Target; it was easy to do). […]
June 3rd, 2008 at 10:56 am EDT
[…] And we’ve agreed that the money we used to put in the pickle jar would go towards the mortgage. When we started paying off the lead HEL, we switched the pickle jar to that. Then, when that was going well, we started splitting the larger monies like from rebates, testing, Deal Barbie, and credit card cash back in 3s–pickle jar, Eric, and me. (And the pickle jar fund morphed into funds for treating visitors. Which we ADORE doing.) Except for testing, the money will go 1/3rd to treating, and the rest towards the house. Since testing is considered work (we pay taxes on it, and we split child care the rest of the weekend), we’ll split that as before. We’re not talking large sums of money, but an extra dollar now on a 30 year mortgage saves a surprising amount of interest. (Quick estimate with 5% interest on a $100,000 loan,an extra dollar a month saves you $471 in interest on a 30 year mortgage. Or almost 1 month’s payment.) […]
June 25th, 2008 at 5:52 pm EDT
Hey there! I have a water cooler jug I’ve used to save for my Alaska vacation in the past :)
The Kim & Jason Lemonade Stand has this fun Piggy Bank Wall Clock - time is money!
http://kimandjason.com/shop/piggy-bank-wall-clock-p-1354.html
Thanks! Keep up the good savings!
~Jenna aka Chief Sales Servant :)