[stracciatella]

Eri112’s money saving tips.

So, did you reblog this money saving challenge last January?

I did.

I remember thinking that it would never work. I remember thinking it would be too hard. I remember thinking HOW CAN I HAVE CASH IN MY ROOM AND NOT SPEND IT??

I just counted and it turns out I saved more than this person calculated.

I saved $1500 in cash. In one year. In a Mason jar.

If you had told me last year that I could do this, I never would have believed you. I have never been a financially secure person. This activity taught me so much about myself as a spender.

Here’s how I did it.

For those who have never seen this, the basic concept is that you print out this (or google 52 week money challenge…You can find many variations on this)…So the first week, you put in $1, second week is $2, third week is $3, etc. The final week of the year, you’ll put in $52. There are 52 weeks in a year. See how that works?

As I said, though. I somehow ended up with more. I’m not sure how that happened. Let me tell you how I managed to save money period.

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND, I AM NOT A FINANCIAL PROFESSIONAL. FOLLOW THESE TIPS WITH CAUTION. I CANNOT GUARANTEE THEY WILL WORK FOR EVERYONE.

1. Create your own payday. I have 2 jobs. One is my full time job that pays every two weeks on Thursday. The other is a part time job that pays every week on Wednesday. So, usually by Thursday, I have all the money I’m going to make that week. So, I made Thursday my pay day. Every Thursday, I made sure to put in the amount I was supposed to for that week.

2. Use small bills. This was CRITICAL to saving money for me. If I didn’t have the cash I needed, I would swing through the ATM and then ask a family member to trade a $20 bill for $1 bills. I put in the required money and then hid all of the other ones under the jar. That way, in future weeks I would have the ones I needed to make a payment.

3. Hide the jar in plain sight. I kept the jar in my room, but it was hidden. This way, I wasn’t tempted to spend it. I have 3 jars in my room. One is my “happy memories” jar where I right down all the good things that happen to me. Then I have my savings jar. I also have a jar for paying myself to work out. (Any time I work out, I pay myself a dollar. I use this money for fun stuff like going to the movies) In order to remember my savings jar and hide it at the same time, I put it directly behind my happy memories jar. That way, I could see the jars, but I couldn’t see the money inside.

4. Pack the money tight! It took my father a good five minutes to help me figure out how to get all of those bills out of that jar. This was quite fun to watch (“HEY DAD! I’m giving you $1400 in a jar! Help me get it out!”) and quite difficult to do. This is because I packed every inch of that jar. Having the money packed in tightly made it really difficult to take money out. The harder it was to take money out, the less I wanted to. I’m quite lazy.

5. Don’t be afraid to borrow, but write it down and pay yourself back in two days. I’ll admit, there were a few occasions where I needed to borrow some money from the jar. I never took more than $20. I also forced myself to pay it back in two days. Now that I think about it, I remember there was one time I borrowed and charged myself interest because I didn’t follow this rule…

Now, as I mentioned, my father is the recipient of this large stack of cash. He was incredibly proud of me, but this lead to a conversation of how I could put away money that could earn some money. He also suggested ways to get out of debt. So here is what he suggested.

1. Open a mutual fund with a high/mildly aggressive interest rate. A mutual fund is an account that you deposit a set amount every month. I’ll be opening one later this week. We found one that earns 13% interest. We agreed that I will put away $50 a month for 5 years. Please note that these accounts will charge a fee if you withdrawal from them. We did the math. If I put away $50 a month for 5 years, I will have deposited $3000. With a 13% interest rate, I will have $4394 by the end of those 5 years. That’s correct. The bank will pay me $1394 just for using their mutual fund.

2. Snowball your debt. I also have acquired a lot of debt over the years. I won’t lie. I love to shop. I have credit cards for every store, including amazon and LLBean (in NH, that’s a big deal). When I receive my bills this month, he and I are going to sit down and compare them all. We’ll be looking at total amounts due as well as the interest rate. Then, I will pay in full anything that I can. That way, I won’t continue to be charged interest on small amounts. Then figure out how much money I can send to the bigger bills. Once you know who has the highest interest rate, you can figure out how to divide that money. You pay the most money to the highest interest rate. On the others, you pay the minimum balance. This way, you can put more money towards the bill that you lose the most money on.

Some advice from my rich sister:

Find a way to earn money when you shop or waste time online.

My sister and I use many different apps for saving money on groceries or shopping. Message me if you’re interested and I can send you my sign up links.

I also use many different websites for earning money online. Check them out:

Bing: Without using it for every search I do, I’ve managed to earn $10 in Starbucks gifts card through Bing. I’m 54% away from my $5 gift card. All you have to do is search for 30 things through Bing. It can be random (I’ve searched my name a hundred times) and they suggest different stories for you to search. You don’t have to click on any of the search results. Just search. There are other ways to earn with Bing, but searching is the easiest. Check it out at Bing Rewards and start earning your gift cards now.

Treasure Trooper: I’ve also been on Treasure Trooper which I originally discovered through another Tumblr user (Thanks Diana!.) I’ve been using it for a little under a year and have already earned $30. You can answer surveys, listen to music, complete tasks…It’s pretty easy. You should check it out.

Inbox Dollars might just be my favorite, though. I’ve been signed up for a little over 5 months and have already earned $46.77. They also have surveys and videos to watch. They also send you e-mails and every time you click “view e-mail” you get 0.02. That adds up.

Swagbucks is an awesome website where you can watch videos (in the background while you sit on Tumblr) and answer surveys, etc. to earn points. Then you redeem those points for gift cards. I have earned $45 Amazon gift cards. It’s so easy. I love it.

So, this is all I have to give for money advice. I can certainly answer questions. Don’t hesitate to message me. Here’s to having a little more cash to play with!

Good luck everyone!

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