My savings plan: Quarters, Dimes, Nickels & Pe

[zachweiss]

My grandpa recently made a down payment on his house with "change" that he had thrown into milk jugs for many, many years.

He told me how he did it and I got inspired to start my own savings/banking system...hahah.

I have always had a hard time saving money and I dont trust banks or anything that I cannot physically control. (stocks, bonds....and all that nonsense)

I have been at it for about a month now and I am EFFORTLESSLY saving money and it feels great! (By saying EFFORTLESSLY, I mean that it is money that I don't miss at all!)

(I have 6 really nice (huge) antique mason jars as my "vaults") :)

Quarters, Dimes, Nickels and Pennies each have their own jar. Having a separate jar for each denomination helps eliminate the "eh, it's just a penny" sort of thinking.

I also have a jar reserved for half dollars, dollar coins and paper currency and another jar for postage stamps, coupons, gift certificates and anything else of value....

Every single day when I get home from work I empty my pockets and place everything it's respective jar......I also go through my wallet and take out all of the $1 bills and place them in the paper currency jar.

I only spend $20, $10, $5 bills whenever possible/convenient. All change and $1 bills go into my vaults! Sometimes I even cash bills in for coins at the gas station and various places throughout the day...the change is less-likely to be spent carelessly!

Everybody throws change into a jar, but with a little bit of conscious effort, a sizeable savings can be amassed after a while with very little physical effort and no risk of uncle sam screwing you out of your money.....

Anybody have any cool tricks or methods that you use to save?

[zachweiss]

OH....btw....I have added anywhere from $0.50 to $10.00 per day to my "vaults" over the past month....it's really starting to add up!

[flatwater]

I have done the same thing on occasions. I figure out of sight out of mind. I made a gourd quarter bank that has no opening to get the quarters out. My wife and I have a bet as to how much it will have when it fills.
Flatwater

[leera]

"out of sight,out of mind....." Exactly.

I have a piggy bank that I put the coin dollars into,I buy them out of the tills at work,and bring them home....into the bank they go.I purposely bought a bank that I could not see through,so I have no idea how much is in there.....

For the rest of our change,we have another bank,and unfortunately,I know when it's about 1/4 full,it's got about $250.00 in it......we've had to use it to pay sudden bills that pop up.But we keep trying.

I also buy all the old silver coins that come in.....I've got a lock box I keep them in.Someday I might have a use for them,but for now,the slots looks like the inside of an antique cash register with all the silver coins in it.

[Dawgus]

We do the same thing. We save change for 6 months at a time, and cash it in for either something we want (usually at Lehmans) or put it in a seperate savings account. I had a friend that saved his change from the day his first son was born, and when he was old enough, that change was enough for the boys first .22 AND a nice small 4 wheeler.

[theresehirko]

We save all change. We pay for things with cash and all change goes into one big jar. When the jar gets full, I separate it out and roll the coins. We haven't used any of it yet. When we save $1K it's going to a Bosch universal mixer. We also save $1 bills and keep them aside for our emergency fund stash for hurricanes and other SHTF scenarios.

[Cil]

When saving coins, check the date on them. Anything that is stamped 1964 or earlier is SILVER!!! KEEP! I'm not too sure about copper pennies, though. Maybe someone here knows.

Congrats, btw.

[OzarkMtnDaredevil]

When saving coins, check the date on them. Anything that is stamped 1964 or earlier is SILVER!!! KEEP!
That's true, Cil, except for nickles. :-*

[Cil]

Ok thanks!

[zachweiss]

Also....anyone who has Kennedy Halves lying around - TAKE A LOOK AT THEM!!!

Some are 40% silver while others are 90% silver, making them much more valuable than 50 cents.

1964 HALVES are 90% silver
1965-1970 HALVES are 40% silver

There's also a website where you can calculate the exact "silver value" of a silver coin - based upon the current silver price. WWW.COINFLATION.COM

[Buck]

Take care when you save coins in glass containers. Coins get
REALLY heavy to the point it will suprize you. I recommend
switching to coffee cans for saftey. Coins in a full glass jar can
break the jar in a million pieces when you go to move them!!

My father in law saved for a shotgun years ago in a canning jar
and it busted when he went to lift it to take to the bank. Pulled
the botton right outta that jar!! :o :o

[pathwayholding]

Pre 1982 pennies have a higher copper content. I think it was around 95%.

I clean out the pop machine change and change from our cars every couple months...grab the magnifying glass...pop in a movie. Coins that are more valuable go into the lock box and the rest go into the bank.

My best find was a coin found in the pop machine money. It was the same size as a quarter but was actually a $5.00 coin from another country!

path

[leera]

We get a lot of Euros mixed in with the change at work.I set them aside,not sure why yet,but you never know,I might have a use for them someday.

I've got coins that date back to 1901......

[Shamrock1121]

I save $1 bills and usually end up with about $800-$1000 a year added to the Christmas/Emergency fund (I deposit the money once a month). I heard Radio Talk Show Guru, Neil Boortz, give this tip years ago, and have used it ever sense.

-Karen

[TheUnboundOne]

Dear Zachweiss,

You could use mechanical banks and coin sorters to add fun to the saving of coinage. *I love watching my mechanical coin sorter send the coins down and plop the coins in the right wrapper!

[theresehirko]

We have safe (old fashioned dial kind, not electronic) that is bolted to the concrete slab in one of our bedrooms. We keep all of our important documents in a ziploc bag in there and our emergency cash. That way, when things go south, like they did for hurricane Katrina, I did not have to stand in line for hours to get emergency cash out of the bank before the storm and get nothing after the storm because there was no way to get money out of the bank. However, the credit union we belong to here won't take coins unless they are already rolled. but they don't charge any fee for taking the coins already rolled.

[gump]

sounds nice but aside from saving some of the more valuable coins, i don't get the idea of earning 0% on your money

[zachweiss]

Call it ignorance....call it paranoia....call it whatever, but I like to be in complete control of what little bit of money that I do actually have.

[tufhelp]

sounds nice but aside from saving some of the more valuable coins, i don't get the idea of earning 0% on your money

Have you checked the interest they are paying on savings these days? And it ain't going to go nowhere but down... My current bank "brags" about the .9% they are offering! Might as well be zero.

[theresehirko]

When the SHTF scenarios happen, like they did here for hurricane Katrina, cash is the only way to buy things. We had no electricity, no stores, no banks, and no gasoline for over two weeks over here. Thank God for our emergency stash of small bills in the safe. If all you have is $20 bills, the price for everything is in $20 increments. If you have small bills, they you have more negotiating power. In this kind of scenario, price gouging is commonplace, and it's all about survival. The one thing that i do wish we had had during katrina was a solar oven. We had plenty of sun that i could have baked bread in a solar oven, with no cost for fuel. Maybe that's what I'll save for instead of the Bosch mixer?

[DaleK]

My bank offers a savings ATM card, where you can choose to round up every transaction to either the next dollar or 5 dollars and the differences automatically gets transferred to a savings account. Same idea as saving your change but harder to cheat.

[Shamrock1121]

sounds nice but aside from saving some of the more valuable coins, i don't get the idea of earning 0% on your money

Dave Ramsey recently read an article on his radio program about some good-ol'-boy who had saved his change for a "bunch" of years before turning in the thousands of dollars he had accumulated. *Dave did the math on it, and if he would have invested that money in good growth stock (not just put it in a simple savings account - which we all know suck just now) how it would have more than doubled over that length of time he had been hoarding it.

-Karen

[ryanmercer]

Have you checked the interest they are paying on savings these days? And it ain't going to go nowhere but down... My current bank "brags" about the .9% they are offering! Might as well be zero.

Emigrant, ING... etc... 3% or thereabouts.

[ryanmercer]

Dave Ramsey recently read an article on his radio program about some good-ol'-boy who had saved his change for a "bunch" of years before turning in the thousands of dollars he had accumulated. *Dave did the math on it, and if he would have invested that money in good growth stock (not just put it in a simple savings account - which we all know suck just now) how it would have more than doubled over that length of time he had been hoarding it.

-Karen


And he could have lost every last dime of it that way too.

[Terri]

I have a "slush fund".

Every week, I put $5 for homesteading in my desk. When I get enough, I deposit it in a separate account. Odds 'n ends like rebates go there also.

When I think of something cool (Like using weed barrier in the garden for the space hogs so I don't have to weed, weeding cantelope is brutal!), the money is there.

Right now I have $330 or so, with $125 to join it as I let them draw my blood for tests. (I have MS, so I let them check my blood and go to 5 visits so they could check for antibodies for the meds that I am on. Since it is an odds 'n ends, I consider it homesteading money.)

I often borrow from the slush fund for pizza on hectic nights, but I always pay it back the next payday.

I have potted up some onions, and I will add beets from the store and young cabbages. I will use the leaves of all of them for greens this winter.

That means I will need grow lights: here in Kansas there just is not quite enough light. I will take it out of the "slush finds", and hope to eat well this winter! And, while I am raising the greens, the slush fund will continue to grow!

[EarthMama]

Zachweiss, I just took a sack full of change to the bank for my eldest daughter (who just had a baby). Her hubby had the habit of emptying his pockets and just leaving the change wherever... so I gathered it up (some was also in a jar) and told her I'd cash it in for her. The amt. put into her checking acct. was almost $200. We were all absolutely amazed!!

So I think you have a grand idea here and so true... the change adds up quicker than we think it does.

Just a thought though... you probably don't have to separate all the change into denominations because most banks won't take rolls today anyhow... they have the change counter machines, so all the change gets dumped in the hopper at one time and counted. But hey, if you wanna separate it, that's o.k. too. :)

[jeep4x4greg]

I save just the coins and end up with about 50$ a month...

Until recently I was putting into checking account for further spending.....but now I'm working on saving more for investing in both stocks and in gold bullion .......something my grampa taught me was a good idea...and he was sure proved right after his death when gold started getting insane in prices. Gramma never needs to worry about money ever....and my aunts and uncles and mom wont either when they get their share.

I like the idea of adding single dollar bills to that.....might have to start that as well

[zachweiss]

Just a thought though... you probably don't have to separate all the change into denominations because most banks won't take rolls today anyhow... they have the change counter machines, so all the change gets dumped in the hopper at one time and counted. But hey, if you wanna separate it, that's o.k. too. Smiley

hahah... :)

Ya know....you are absolutely right!

Having a separate jar for each different type of coin helps me stay "gung-ho" about saving my change.....not sure why!

Besides, what else am I gonna do with that many old Mason jars...lol!:) j/k!

[Cil]

Just becareful where you put the $$$. I read an arcticle about a woman who saved her money from 2 jobs in a shoebox and this latest fire here in Granada Hills hit, her house caught on fire and there went about $17,000 up in smoke. Lesson learned... SPEND WHATEVER AMOUNT IT IS AND BUY A FIRE PROOF SAFE!!!

[zachweiss]

Just becareful where you put the $$$.

I have been compulsive about my change here lately.....I have been cashing all of my Dollar Bills in for quarters. I am a coin-hoarding fool! haha

[gump]

there is a difference between emergency money vs. excess savings. my impression is that we were talking about savings. in that case, stash in the jar and i will put it towards riskier investments. talk to me in 5-10 years :)

[zachweiss]

my impression is that we were talking about savings.

You know the kind of guy that goes to a bar.....gets drunk....and then starts buying everybody beers?

I have similar habits!

When I have money - I spend it! Sometimes unwisely!

My savings and emergency cash are the same darn thing -for now anyways! :):)

[theresehirko]

For actual savings, we have money taken out of our paychecks, (well Bob's paycheck for now until I'm out of school). Since we don't see it, we have automatically adjusted our budget each year to live with less. My coin in the jar method is usually just mad money or saving for something that i want, but don't need. I want a Bosch universal mixer, but don't need one. When i get it, I'm going to give the mixer, blender and food processor to my kids. But I wouldn't rely on my coin jar for a serious savings plan.

[zachweiss]

But I wouldn't rely on my coin jar for a serious savings plan.

eh money is money.......some of our great, great grand-dads didn't trust banks either and they got by just fine with their coin jar! :)

But you do actually have a valid point....I think most of us understand the ol' coin jar is very different from a long-term savings plan...it's just that saving coins kinda becomes an addictive hobby!

[leera]

To further clarify my own savings plan here is where my money goes every week/month.

I get paid weekly.

$50.00 a week into savings

$15.00 a week into 401K,which my employer matches 100%(currently have a little over 10K),the funds are divided between slow growth mutual funds.

$32.00 a month into IRA for me,$28.00 a month into IRA for DH,both are still currently earning,although not as much as they used to.When the economy is good both accounts earn as much as 7%.

The remainder of my check goes towards bills,etc.....

Any and all change goes into the change bank,all coin dollars go into my piggy bank(digital camera fund,the camera I want costs $3200.00)

Nearly 100% of DH's paycheck is "excess funds"so we have been putting it aside in our small safe until we get a legal issue with SSA straighened out,I dare not put that money into an account that they might be able to freeze.

So essentially we are living on one income.

[theresehirko]

I keep a little notepad (like the kind that nurse's carry in their pockets to make notes) and daily keep a tab of what we have in the jar and how much we add, which is usually between 50 cents a d a dollar a day. It may not be much each day, but each day that Bosch mixer get a little closer to being mine!

[TheUnboundOne]

Dear Gump,

You wrote:

sounds nice but aside from saving some of the more valuable coins, i don't get the idea of earning 0% on your money

Well, Gump, I may not be a smart man, but I do know what market corrections, income taxation, and inflation are.

;D ;)

Between those three, passbook savings accounts are shot and judging from the gloomy economics news, it looks like even mutual funds and money market accounts may not be too safe either.

Hey, at least a matress won't lie to you or hit you up with a $1 Trillion Dollar + tax-bill for its shortcomings.

Besides, if you keep your coinage, it isn't earning 0% if you use them to make batteries, as I detailed here:

Re: Where will your money be when the ball drops?
http://www.backwoodshome.com/forum/yabb/forum.pl?board=fin-other;action=display;num=1166059008;start=19#19

[TheUnboundOne]

Dear Cil,

You wrote:

Just becareful where you put the $$$. I read an arcticle about a woman who saved her money from 2 jobs in a shoebox and this latest fire here in Granada Hills hit, her house caught on fire and there went about $17,000 up in smoke. Lesson learned... SPEND WHATEVER AMOUNT IT IS AND BUY A FIRE PROOF SAFE!!!

Also, after a fire, don't open up a safe immediately but let it cool off, as the paper inside may still be hot, so if it is exposed to Oxygen, it could ignite.

[TheUnboundOne]

Dear Ryanmercer,

You wrote:

And he could have lost every last dime of it that way too.


Yep! I get the feeling that it's gonna be a long time before Dave Ramsey has anyone yelling: "FREEEEDOOOOM!" alongside William Wallace on his program.

But, hey! Dave probably has to keep putting out happy horse-hockey like that so that the coffers of organized religion can still stay filled up.

Same likewise with Herman Cain on WSB in Atlanta. If he told the truth of how we're being screwed, the radio station revenues might shrivel up, as people spend less on radio sponsors and more on the three Bs.

[TheUnboundOne]

Dear Terri,

Howdy, Terri! Your garden sounds like a much better investment than a whole lot of other things out there. Get enough beets, onions, lettuce, cabbage, spinach, turnips, and herbs going and keep one or two of each for seed, and you can have a salad with every meal. And, of course, that will help save anyone thousands on the medical bills too.

[ryanmercer]

Have you checked the interest they are paying on savings these days? And it ain't going to go nowhere but down... My current bank "brags" about the .9% they are offering! Might as well be zero.


http://www.alliantcreditunion.org/ is giving me 3.69%, they even offer that on their "kid club" account for children.... only catch is you have to have more than 100$ in the account every month to earn interest... which being a savings account, I'd hope you'd be trying to keep it above 100 bucks.