A Buck A Day!

Many people (including me) primarily use a debit card, credit card, or check to make everyday purchases because our paychecks are electronically deposited into our accounts at our favorite banks. We may be losing the advantage of one of the oldest and easiest savings methods there is.

If you were to go to the bank right now and take out $50 to pay for small ticket items, like a coke, snack, toll booth etc.. you would have a pocket full of change at the end of the week! In most cases you would have close to $5. Let's say you put all of your change into a jar and didn't count it for 3 months. After that time you would have about $60 to invest! That's $240 a year!

What I do, like I said, I hardly ever use cash, so I go to the bank and ask for $50. I then use that money to buy lunch, bottled water (it's $1.25 so I get .75 cents everytime) etc... Every night I put my loose change into an old Coka-Cola piggy bank that I have had literally for years. Every 3 months (when I receive my dividend check from my credit union) I roll up the change and deposit it into my savings account! My change is now making me interest and I don't miss any of it!

*Note*
Depending on your where you are depositing your change you will take it in loose or it has to be rolled with your account number on it, call before you go to your back. Nothing sucks more than having to unroll $80 in pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters so that it can be put into a coin counting machine!

Let me know if you do something like this or do it better!

UPDATE 3/11/08
Yesterday alone I was able to put $2.59 into my change bank and so far today I have got .53 cents back from the post office!
Makes you want to bend over and pick up that penny huh!

Also, today I will be taking advantage of my "day off" (I have to go in for about 2 hours) and I will be building my worm beds. I was able to find 8 dozen worms. more on that later, I will post pics of the process!