The Half-Year Savings Tune-Up
June 2, 2008
Is it June already? I totally can’t believe it. But this is a good time – the halfway point in the year – to give your savings a nice tune-up. Here are a few easy things that you can do to help build your wealth. Try them and see how much more you can save. And then put these extra savings to work for you.
1. Make your change count.
You know all those dimes, quarters, nickels and pennies that you throw into a jar or a drawer or an empty 2-liter plastic bottle of Diet Pepsi? Well, they can really add up.
Don’t think so? Check this out. About every 3 months I take two 2-liter bottles full of my change to my local Commerce Bank, where I use their Penny Arcade change machine to turn my change into dollars. And every time, the total is around $300. That works out to about $100 a month. Or $1200 a year. That’s not bad for some loose change. And that money goes into one of my interest-earning accounts, not my pocket.
Just think of how much change you can turn into cash. If you’re like me, you’re probably looking at around $1200 a year.
2. Pay yourself $5 a day.
You’re probably worth a heck of a lot more than 5 bucks a day. But for this easy savings plan, just pay yourself $5 a day either by putting $5 into a jar every day or subtracting from your paycheck $5 for every day you worked and throwing it into an interest-earning account
If you work full-time, that’s about 260 days a year. At $5 a day, that works out to $1300 for the year. Read more
