“If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting.” —Benjamin Franklin
Growing up one of my favorite toys was my piggybank.
I used to put all the spare change and money I found or received into it.
It was my ice cream truck money.
I just loved having my own.
It was such as source of pride, freedom, and independence because I was allowed to spend my money on the things I wanted.
That is how I want everyone to feel.
A sense of ownership and accountability over oneself and your actions.
In order to do this, you have to go back to saving the old-fashioned way, like putting money inside that old piggybank.
Here’s how.
A HOUSE IS NOT A PIGGYBANK
First, you need to stay away from borrowing. And if you truly must borrow, make sure to only get what is absolutely necessary. Every dollar you borrow just keeps you in debt.
Case in point, if you do a cash out refinance on your home, that can reset your mortgage debt-free clock and cause you to owe more interest over the life of the loan.
No one wants that.
You need to keep your hands off of large piles of cash. This includes the equity in your home, your 401(k), and easy access savings accounts.
It’s like losing weight. You have to keep your hands out of the cookie jar. In this instance, it’s the money jar. If you keep taking out of it, you will never reach your goals.
Forget taking out huge auto loans and personal loans. You do not need to drive a BMW to the airport on the way to Jamaica. That is the road to broke, if you cannot afford it.
I would rather you drive a Honda to the Grand Canyon, if this will keep you out of debt.
HOW TO START SAVING YOUR COINS
The most important step is to decide to save. If you want to save more, you have to earn more, slash expenses, or both.
Set a goal.
I started out with a goal of $50 per month and worked my way up to saving $13,000 a year by increasing yearly savings goals.
You have to write it down. Otherwise, it is a wish and not a goal. A goal requires action. It starts with writing it down. A written plan is 80% more likely to succeed.
I started saving my change. I would put it into a jar or bag.
I would save up anywhere from $25 to $100 dollars in change and then deposit this into the bank.
When you see the money add up and feel how heavy that coin jar or bag is, it gives you incentive to keep going. After, mastering the coin game, I moved on to bigger gains.
TURN SAVING COINS INTO SAVING DOLLARS
Then I started turning my attention onto dollars.
I started with manually transferring $50 per month into my savings account.
From there, I set up an automatic deposit of $25 every two weeks.
However, I was also getting tired of having to pay ATM fees. So, I found a way around this.
I would have to either go to the bank and take out a large enough amount of money to get me through the week, go to free ATM’s, spend less, or go to stores and do cash back.
For instance, grocery stores will allow you to do a debit card cash back of anywhere from $100-$300 depending on what store you go to.
Other places, like the convenience store, may allow you to get between $20-$80 cash back with a purchase.
I slowly worked my way up to saving more.
Every year, I would re-evaluate what my saving goals were, I would write it down, and figure out a way to make it happen.
If you zero sum budget, then you know when something gets paid off or you eliminate any type of expense that money gets freed up and must go somewhere or it disappears. Like all good dogs, it goes into heaven, I call it dollars heaven.
I started saving my money first from income I earned, and then spending what was left over.
I would decide to save $300 per month and figure out how much more to bring in to increase my cash flow or what I could cut in my budget to lower my expenses and then save that money.
It went down like this:
Year 1: Save $600.
Year 2: Save $1,800.
Year 3: Save $2,500.
Year 4: Save $3,600.
Year 5: Save $10,000.
Year 6: Save $13,333.
WHERE TO PLACE YOUR MONEY
Since, I knew I did not want to depend on having to go to the bank or grocery store every week, I decided to place money into a cash box.
I would put no more than a few hundred bucks in it.
I was placing my savings into several savings accounts such as regular savings and money market savings.
In addition, I would label my savings accounts to ear mark that money for things I wanted to pay for such as a vacation, car, home down payment, or college.
I then started looking into Certificates of Deposit (CDs) and High Yield Savings Accounts (HYSA).
With the high yield accounts, you can start to earn money on your money, that you can spend any way you want.
HOW TO BE YOUR OWN BANKER
Now that you have a cash cushion and cash box, you need banks less and less.
You should get to the point of not needing to borrow for much of anything.
You can keep 1s, 5s, 10s, 20s, 50s, and 100s in your cash box. Enough money to make your own change.
The savings account allows you to earn interest on your money and use this to save up enough to pay for hotel stays, rental cars, and vacations.
You can also earn through peer-to-peer lending because you now have enough dough to start lending to others like a bank does. And earn interest too!
ROLLING IN THE DOUGH
At this point, you should be able to start saving at least 10% to 25% of your income, after you eliminate debt and put your money to work for you.
So, now you know how I did it and what you can do too.
I went from saving $50 to over $13,000 per year! See how here
How Millennial Money inspired me to start saving $13,333.06 a year
I started doing 5% of my income to now saving over 41% of my gross income!
It took years to get to this point.
Once I made the decision to save, I wrote it down, and created a plan.
It took over 5 years to get here!
So, take my advice, do not rush to try and do so much and then do nothing.
Take small steps toward bigger ones. That is the key to building wealth. The kind of wealth that lasts takes time to build. There are no shortcuts. Only patience, discipline, consistency, and time.