4 Easy Ways To Save Money You Might Actually Do

I suck at saving money - I'm quite a spender.  In fact, if I'm anywhere near a Target, our checking account is in critical danger.

My husband is actually the budget conscious one in our small family - and thank goodness.  He keeps us able to go on vacations and buy cool things like curved TVs (I cannot flipping way to get our curved tv).

Through the first few years of marriage, Brett & I learned some awesome tips on how to pay ourselves and build up our savings that were SO EASY (and even FUN), that event I could do it - and that's saying a lot.


So enjoy: 4 Easy Ways to Save Money That You Might Actually Do:

#1) The $5 Bill Box

Every time you come across a five dollar bill, you put it in a special tucked-away box.  You do not open the box, and you for no reason dip into the box for any reason.  You will actually be quite surprised that you come across $5 bills so often in getting change for large bills.  Every time one gets handed back to you, you put it aside to put it in the box as soon as you get home.  The hardest part is not peaking until the end of the year, when you can open the box and use it for holiday cash, or roll it into next year's box.    Last year, Brett and I started our $5 Bill Box after finding the idea in July and wound up with over $200.

#2) The Loose Change Water Cooler Jug 

This is pretty much the same concept as the $5 bill box, except every time you come up with loose change you put it in a water cooler jug.  I learned this one from my Mom & Dad.  We had a loose change water cooler jug growing up  (and I definitely dipped into it when no one was home to fund trips to the ice cream trucks surrounding our neighborhood).  Mom & Dad would dump loose change into this thing when passing.  It took a while, but they eventually got the thing half way full of quarters, dimes, pennies and nickels.  When my brother's bike went stolen, we started rolling the change and were surprised to cash in over $300 in loose change (enough for one of those cool Mongoose bikes that were so popular in the 90s for 13-year-olds)!   Brett & I have one in my office, but have yet to get it past anything significant - we keep tipping it over to find quarters for toll roads (whoops). 

#3) The Gift That Keeps Giving

This one really works for folks in that stage of life when all their friends are getting married and having babies.  Every time you buy a gift for someone, or give a gift of cash, you pay your savings account the same gift for yourself.  If you give your nephew $20 for his birthday, then you put $20 away for yourself.  If you give your best friends $500 for their wedding, then you gift $500 to your savings.  What's really cool is looking back throughout the year and tallying the results - you will feel like the most generous person in the world.  It may even make you give more generous gifts to people :) Bonus - you can add charity donations to this gift payback list, too! 

#4) Set it and Forget It

Every bank and direct deposit mechanism at your work should have a means to split deposit into your checking and savings - or even into a completely different account at another bank or credit union.  Right before Brett & I got married almost 3 years ago, we set up a 'set it and forget it' account at my work's credit union. Every time I get paid and it is direct deposited into my regular bank's checking account, $100 gets deposited into the credit union.  We cannot, for any reason, dip into the credit union account.  Not for vacations, televisions, home improvements or otherwise.  This is what will keep building for real emergencies, future college funds, etc.  Once Brett & I start making more, we'll up the ante.  What's great about this method is that since it's in a completely different financial institution and not too large of a sum coming out of direct deposit, we keep forgetting that we have it.  We are very surprised to see quarterly sums arrive to tell us how much we have already saved (at which time, we high-five).