Savings Tip #1 - Save Your Change, It Really Adds Up
Lacey |
Thoughtfully composed by Lacey Filed under: Financial Planning, Wedding |
Tanner and I have been putting our spare change into a jar for a month or two. I counted that change today (by hand, with coin rolls) and we have saved $45!
I am very excited because although it isn’t much towards our $5,000 goal, it was completely effortless and painless. We generally don’t use change when making a cash purchase, and found it easy to save up those extra coins. Counting the change was the only hard part. I thought about using Coinstar (which charges 8.9 cents per dollar) but since it’s a small savings I didn’t want to pay their fee, and anyways I don’t live that close to a Coinstar lol. So, I decided to count them myself. I started with a machine coin sorter, but it didn’t work for long lol, so I had to continue by hand (word to the wise - don’t put too many coins it at once, and be sure that the coins are making it into the coin rolls below). After we save up a little more money we plan on depositing this money into a short term savings account with an interest rate of 5%. We could make more money on the stock market, but we are worried about the risks involved on such a short term savings. However, if we find a stock we have some confidence in, we may change our mind lol.
Another way to save your change is to enroll in Bank of America’s “Keep the Change” program. For each purchase you make with your BOA debit card, they place the remainder of the dollar into your BOA savings account. This means if you buy a Coke that costs $1.25, your debit card will note the purchase as $2 and place the $0.75 extra into your savings account. The bonus is that for the first 3 months, BOA will match 100% of your savings. From what I have heard from current subscribers, this matching is placed in your account at the end of the first year. Note that the savings account needs a minimum of $300 to waive the $5 monthly maintenance fee, and the interest rate is only 0.20% - not very good.
I plan on enrolling in this program in about a month, I’ll keep the minimum $300 in my savings, and will transfer the rest over to an account with a higher interest rate.
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April 30th, 2007 at 12:22 am
Thank you for visiting my wedding photography website. I think your website for making wedding money is a great idea! Our local bank doesn’t charge anything if we take our coins in to the counter for them to count. Call your branch and see if they’ll do it for you for free.