Go on a Money Diet
As I try to be more
responsible in my adulting, I find myself coming up with, or simply employing
things I have heard, into my saving routine. This one here is one I’ve previously used to
ramp myself up to something nonessential that I may find myself wanting to
throw cash at a ways down the road. This
is not a quick-and-fast savings scheme.
That said, don’t expect to necessarily get rich off of this.
I call it The Money Diet.
I know that sounds like a
silly-ass name, but it is simply what I came up with to call it when I first
tried it about 3 years ago.
It is really a simple thing to do in theory, once you work yourself
up to it psychologically. That last part
though…
When you leave your house
in the morning, things you should expect to have to spend money on should be
paid for with cash. When you are going
to make this purchase, you basically plan not to pay exact change – especially for
your first expenditure of the day – and know that you will be breaking a bill
($1/$5/$10/$20…). When presented with
your change, the $5/$10 bills go in one place and singles and change go
another.
Wait, what? WHY?!!?
Thank you for asking!
Because, when you get home, you have a jar or a coffee can or a box or some other vessel to place the singles and change in. You take them out of your pocket and put them in the jar whenever you walk back in the house or at the end of your day if you just can’t let yourself do that.
Because, when you get home, you have a jar or a coffee can or a box or some other vessel to place the singles and change in. You take them out of your pocket and put them in the jar whenever you walk back in the house or at the end of your day if you just can’t let yourself do that.
But why in the
great blue hell would I do THAT?!
Again, I thank you for asking.
See, if you go into a purchase knowing that you’re going to lose short-term use of some of your money, you tend to think long and hard before making that purchase, don’t you? Secondly, we’re all adults here and spending money is inevitable for our day-to-day lives. You literally HAVE to spend money to live.
See, if you go into a purchase knowing that you’re going to lose short-term use of some of your money, you tend to think long and hard before making that purchase, don’t you? Secondly, we’re all adults here and spending money is inevitable for our day-to-day lives. You literally HAVE to spend money to live.
Okay, so now you’re putting
away your ones and coins immediately upon return to the house, what do you do
with it and when?
Mimi and I have been doing this for 6 weeks now and we discussed last week what the overall goal was for the money and when would make a move on it. The last time I did this alone, I did it for 3.5 months and amassed $261 in singles alone, so Iwent to the strip club
took my daughter to Nike and we bought shoes.
We decided that with two people throwing into that jar that I will not
post a picture of, we will do this until the jar is full/overfull, then we will
cash it in and go away for a weekend or buy ourselves something REALLY nice.
Mimi and I have been doing this for 6 weeks now and we discussed last week what the overall goal was for the money and when would make a move on it. The last time I did this alone, I did it for 3.5 months and amassed $261 in singles alone, so I
The beauty of this approach
is that it removes money from your normal circulation that you have already
committed to not spending and therefore kind of budget around anyway. That said, you’re not missing it like you
might with a more aggressive approach to saving. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in
spending the money on something you will like as a reward for all your hard
work makes it even MORE worth it. And bear
in mind, back to my original point, you thought long and hard about breaking that
motherfucking twenty knowing that $3 out of it was coming out of your pocket
not to be seen anytime soon again and therefore you refrained from spending a
TON of those $20s.
That last sentence is the “adult” side of why this works. Not only are you slowly building a cache of “fun” cash, you should have also held on to the real money out of reluctance to have to put so much of it away.
That last sentence is the “adult” side of why this works. Not only are you slowly building a cache of “fun” cash, you should have also held on to the real money out of reluctance to have to put so much of it away.
Perhaps you would like to
employ this long-term. Maybe you want to
make a hefty purchase and you can set that out a year or 18 months. Maybe you can do it indefinitely and buy a
used car for a few grand when yours finally goes on to glory. Maybe you have a kid who will eventually need
braces or some such thing down the line.
And it’s FUN! I mean, it isn’t like savings accounts are exactly paying shit these days, so those “keep the change” ones that rounds every purchase up to the next dollar and put them in your savings account aren’t nearly as fun as this is.
And it’s FUN! I mean, it isn’t like savings accounts are exactly paying shit these days, so those “keep the change” ones that rounds every purchase up to the next dollar and put them in your savings account aren’t nearly as fun as this is.
Try it when you can talk
yourself into it sometime.
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