Every paycheck, I tuck away money for Christmas, vacation, and other important priorities. Tucking away a little money on a regular basis makes larger expenses a possibility.
For instance, if you tucked away $10/month from one Hearts at Home conference to the next, you’d have enough for the $89 registration fee. If you tucked away $20/month during that same time, you’d have enough for a shared hotel room and the registration fee.
If you put $10-$15 of every bi-weekly paycheck you’d have enough for a weekend getaway every 6 months with your spouse.
If you put away $5 a bi-weekly paycheck, you’d have enough to treat yourself to a massage or a pedicure every 6 months or so.
If you put away $20 from a bi-weekly paycheck, you’d have enough for you and your hubby to take a cruise in about 2 years or so.
Squirreling away little bits of money here and there doesn’t affect the weekly budget much, but it opens up the possibilities for some of the bigger things you’re likely dreaming about.
It’s even more helpful if you can have the money automatically taken out of the paycheck and tucked into a specific savings account. Today’s online banking options make these kinds of automatic transfers so easy!
Sometimes you can use this saving method by taking something out of your budget and re-purposing the money to savings. One couple I know saved enough money to take a cruise by taking Starbucks out of their regular expenses. They were spending $40 a month on Starbucks ($10/week). They decided to give up Starbucks to allow them to take a vacation of their dreams. Twenty-four months later they were sitting on a beach in Cancun, 10 lbs lighter each (those Starbucks drinks are packed with calories!), enjoying some much needed time away.
What about you? How have you found this saving principle to be helpful? If you’ve never done it before, what could you start saving toward today?
Yes, I have envelopes that I keep money back for birthdays, gifts (like for baby showers, etc.), Christmas, and vacation. It is so nice to have it tucked away and also to watch it grow through the year.
Bethany
Yay!
We are saving for a small addition to our house as well as a trip somewhere by the beach for our 10 year anniversary in 2 1/2 years!
Good for you, Katie!
I love this! I love that you actually broke it all down to show us how far even $5 can go.
I have been trying to learn to save for a while now. We started tithing which is now just an automatic thing for me, but at first it took a lot of courage and faith. This year, my husband received a small raise, we decided that the increase in each check was going to go to the Christmas savings that we have been wanting to start. But my question is what is the best way to save money and maybe make a little bit on it in interest? My bank offers about a third to half a percent in interest, is there a better interest rate other places???
Robin,
About a year ago, we moved all our savings to an online account at Ally Bank: http://www.ally.com. Their interest rates are the best we’ve found. For a while they were over 1% interest…now they are under 1% but they are still better than our brick and mortar bank where our checking acct is. We’ve been very pleased with the customer service at Ally, too!
We started saving like this a year or two ago and have found it very useful. This year we’re saving up for a high school reunion trip, a vacation and a trip to a memorial ride for my husband’s uncle who passed away. Keeping an envelope for vehicle maintenance has also helped! We knew we’d need brakes done this year, so we weren’t shell-shocked by the price tag since we had socked a little back over the past year.
I started both an emergency fund and a “fun” envelope. I had a second job as a side income for about 4 months and added uneven amounts to the envelopes each payday, whether I had 4 hours or 12 hours on the checks. I have now dropped that job so that I could work more hours at my primary job to keep my VERY good health insurance rates low.
We have now been offered (and taking it!) a rent free home starting in July! We plan on using the money that we were using for rent to put aside for paying off debts and a fun date night here and there!
We have found this principle to be so true! We’ve set up several direct deposits in various accounts to help keep special savings separate and “invisible” to us. This way we have money set aside for gifts, music lesson fees for the kids, car payments, car insurance every 6 months, and vacations. There’s NO WAY we’d be diligent enough to save that money if it was physically in our home! TOO TEMPTING!
Great advice, Jill! When broken down into monthly savings it’s easy to make large purchases seem more affordable.