Now this is a daft little gem which I have not shut up about for weeks. It is, I have decided, the most obvious and simple way to boost your summer holiday/vacation reddies known to man.
The nuggie jar is what I call my collection of £1 coins. Now before you click away in disgust at the fact I call this advice; hear me now.
About 6 weeks ago, whenever I got home, if I happened to have any £1 coins on my person, I would throw them in my drawer (which later changed to a secret tub as to escape detection from any thieving rascals). There was no special effort exerted with this, I didn’t even, when out, try to keep hold of the little nuggets; just when I got home, if I had any on me, I would make a deposit.
When I hit £30, I was excited yet resisted the urge to buy anything!! Long story short – after eight weeks of not touching them (except for counting, almost every time I put one in to make sure I was correct the previous twenty counts) I had accumulated £147!!! I have saved and through virtually no effort, an additional £21 per week!
Now, the beauty of this is that the £147, is money that most certainly would have been spent on something meaningless if I had not have had the nuggie jar; the reason for this, is that loose coins, always get spent, sooner or later. You don’t put them in the bank, and you don’t, in usual circumstances, keep huge amounts in the house. They are just frittered; as they are collected in £1-£3, the amount saved each time would not buy anything of importance, probably a chocolate bar, or a fizzy drink.
After time, you find yourself not spending your loose change unless it really is needed; you think of the nuggie jar. My friend said to me however, if you don’t spend your change it means withdrawing more notes from a cash point if you intend to buy something; therefore, actually costing you money. This is a fair argument, but in my experience, is complete nonsense. Picture, if you walk past a shop and fancy a chocolate bar or a drink, and find £1 in the pocket, you may decide to fritter the nuggie and have a moment of pleasure thanks to the chocolate bar; however, would you ever withdraw £10 for that same purchase? I guess probably not; you only withdraw for the things that you really need.
This is productive on many levels, it combats the negative habit of frittering money, develops self discipline In not spending when you have a chocolate craving and develops the habit of spending wisely.
A friend also said to me that the same could be true of £5 notes, they always get spend sooner or later so why not keep them too and never spend anything. This is where we must be realistic; firstly, notes in general can amount to decent sums and should be, by the thoughtful person, banked. Further, if you need something, £5 can help you along the way and will possibly supply you with £1 coins as change from the purchase for the nuggie jar!
This is just a simple, and truthfully, effective, way of saving if you are otherwise hopeless. As it is the coming into the English summer, I have now accumulated nearly £200, over the past two months or so; and with a month left until my holidays, I could add a possible £80 onto that, not a bad little fund to party with!
This is just a little part of increasing your net worth, if you can save these insignificant amounts (on their own) you will soon create stock piles, consider, if you save, or invest 10% of your wage until you retire, by learning to live on 90% of your wage into some high interest account, you will retire very nearly a millionairre, thats the law of economics for earning around £24,000 salary. Get those piggy banks filled.
Worth a thought! Try it for two weeks; you’ll be hooked – and quids in!
Kimberly Gill says
I also had a little orange tea jar where I stored coins that were weighing down my purse. I never seemed to spend them, it’s so much quicker to hand somebody an extra dollar bill. I think this particular jar had been sitting in my apartment gathering for about 5 months. And so recently, I found myself in a sticky situation with a lost bank card and closed banks on a Sunday. My little sister had promised our mother a beautiful Mother’s Day picnic but neither of us had cash!
Needless to say, I lugged the jar to the nearest Coinstar and walked away with $43 and all the ingredients for our perfect afternoon, roses and all. For sure, I should have reinvested the change. Thanks for the article Jreeves, it is time to begin a new jar!
Carrie B. says
I liked this article.
We do have $1 coins in the US, but they are not very big in circulation. This means quarters are the prized coinage around most US houses. But whether .01, .05, .10 or .25, we have several “drop spots” for coins. One (the giant Coke bottle in the closet) is n’er raided. The wooden house is seldom-raided and the coffee can is most often raided. I turn that one into our parking meter money-slash-Coinstar money. At least where we live we have this thing called Coinstar whereby you can deposit all of your coins into it and get a cash receipt (minus about 8 cents per dollar) or get a gift card with 100% of your funds on it, no surcharge. We use the cards to buy things we would normally get anyway. Since the machines are IN the stores we go to, we save a trip to the bank. Lovely. The rest just keeps adding up in the house and Coke bottle, respectively. It’s fun (and heavy)!
Adventure-Some Matthew says
I have a “Nuggie jar” as well, and have for year. It’s a habit that I picked up from Dad when I was young, saving all of one’s coins. Some of my earliest memories are counting coins with Dad.
I keep a bowl on my dresser, so every day when I unload my pockets I have somewhere close to put them. As the collection grows, I empty it into a larger container of some sort, like a popcorn tin.