Our car is approaching 100,000 miles and is almost 7 years old. I know we will need to replace it in a few years, and I don’t want to take out a loan when that time comes; I want to pay cash.
Likewise, we want to buy a house in the next 4 to 6 years, and I would like to have a 20% downpayment. Even if we plan to buy a house under $200,000, we are looking at $40,000 down payment. We have no money saved for this currently.
We have these two large savings goals, but right now our income is stretched and we are not always meeting all of our monthly expenses. Now that my husband has a full-time job and I am bringing in more money, I expect that we will be able to meet our monthly obligations, but there isn’t much room for extra savings.
So, I have decided on this unusual savings plan:
All change will go in a jar and be saved for a new car.
All $5 bills will be saved for a down payment on a house.
I will report back weekly on how much we are saving this way when I report back for my Where Does Our Money Go Challenge.
I know we can’t buy a new car based on saving change, but this is a way to start saving, even when it doesn’t currently look possible in our monthly budget. I am hoping in the next six to twelve months to add a line in our budget for each of these savings goals. But right now, at least we are starting to save.
What unusual savings methods do you use when money is tight?
I think these are great ways to save. I also wrote about them today as ways to save for vacation spending money. We save our change and my parents save their $1 bills through out the year. It always surprises me how fast the money can accumulate.
I know! I have been saving the $5 bills since May 21st, and I already have $60.
I also save my change and i find it builds up really quickly. It also helps curb my spending as i have a rule that every evening i put whatever change i have away so i only have notes in my wallet. when i want to buy something i have to use a note and it makes me think twice about how much i want the item i was going to buy!
I have a coin jar too and sometimes put bills in. I’m planning on using it to surprise my hubby with a weekend trip for his b-day! =)
That sounds like a great idea. I am sure he’ll be happy you saved enough for the trip. 🙂
My mother in law tucks her $5 bills away as a general savings for ‘fun’ things. My question on this is how do you do this when budgeting to a zero-budget. For instance, if I break a $20 from my grocery envelope and get 3 $5 bills as change, is it realistic to put them all in the separate fund if my food budget that week is already a goal to cut by 1/3 or 1/2 of recent spending? Basically, I’m looking forward to hearing how this goes for you and definitely agree it is better to start somewhere and just try something for those goals that seem impossible. Maybe we’ll do that for hubby’s motorcycle dream.
I have only been doing this for about 2 weeks now, but it hasn’t been too painful yet. I go grocery shopping at two different stores, and usually I get a $5 back from each one. If I were like you and got back $15, all in fives, I would probably tuck away just one and still use the other two fives because theoretically, you could have gotten a $10 in change.
I used to throw change in a jar. It would average $40-50 per month. If you are paying cash for your purchases, change and $5 bills can add up. I switched almost exclusively to a rewards credit card so this no longer works for me.
We have been moving to cash exclusively, so I am hoping it adds up. $40 to 50 a month is impressive. We’ll see how much we end up with monthly.
ok im in on this too! im in the same house saving boat as you…but our time line is 2-3 yrs….eek!
Great. I’d love to hear your progress weekly along with the “Where Does My Money Go” Challenge.
Sounds like a great plan – I would like to warn you saving up cash at home then making a large deposit into you savings account right before you buy a home is a mortgage nightmare so please make deposits along the way. We have a vacation fund underway using change and 1.00 .. Maybe we should step it up a bit
Thank you for the words of advice. I plan to put it into the bank every two to four weeks.
I save all the change from doing the laundry…emptying pockets sometimes pays very well! This money goes into the “fun fund” for entertainment for the kiddos over summer break. The cost of weekend camping, state park admissions and gas really add up so any little bit set aside can help…
Bank of america has a ‘keep the change’ way of doing that, plus they match the funds for the first three months..
http://www.bankofamerica.com/deposits/checksave/index.cfm?template=keep_change&context=&statecheck=CA&cd_bag=&sa_bag=&ch_bag=
What a great idea! We save our change and end up with about $300 a year or so. Good luck!
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