Tuesday, January 7, 2014

We Are Saving (for a Rainy Day)

We are saving, we are saving - sing along there. It’s something we all promise we’re going to do and then we forget and spend the money on something else. Over the years, I’ve managed to get into the habit of saving a small amount regularly so I have an emergency fund and it gets raided regularly despite my best intentions. Last year there was the curious case of the leaking immersion, the day that Hubs impaled the car on a giant gate and the garden gate disintegrating. It’s all about the money. Last month, I saw an article online about an American lady who decided to save, a dollar at a time, to create a little nest egg and I was hooked.





The idea is really simple. Start with just €1 on Week 1 (£1, $1 or whatever currency you’re using). Put it into a jar. The next week, put €2 into the jar and increase your contribution by €1 every week. If you keep this up for a year, you’ll have the princely sum of €1,378 in your jar to spend on whatever you want or need. Even though you’ve missed Week 1, you can start the plan right now. Print out my savings sheet, stick €3 into your jar and look, you’ve already reached Week 2. Think of how rich you’re going to be at the end of 2014!!!


Both myself and The Hubs have started (in my vintage Terry’s Neapolitans tin) with €1 each on Week 1. If we keep this up, he’ll have enough to pay his car tax and insurance when they both land in November (the expensive month) and I’ll have enough for something frivolous, or practical, or even both.

I’d love to know what you plan to do with your savings – go on, tell me!







12 comments:

  1. Aiofe best of luck with the savings! I started years ago to save €10 a week for Christmas through the Church saving. Up here maybe down the country too(!) used to offer savings option whereby you will give them your money every week and they will pay it out in the first week of Christmas but would keep the interest to pay for the roof repairs... Alas saving interests are no longer high and with admin costs it isn't worth it anymore. But I still do it sometimes increasing to €20 a week. It's brilliant to have money at Christmas for either presents or the sales!! Btw I am not a church goers but my friend enticed me to it with her! It's

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  2. A fabulous idea. I just know that I would be able to stick to it though...

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  3. Such a good idea. I bought some jars in Ikea one of them will work perfectly.

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  4. It's the first time I've heard of this idea and I like it. I would love to have more free cash to spend on food for the festive season next year

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  5. Such a good idea, but tell me - aren't the last few weeks really hard?

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  6. Becky, that's why on the sheet I recommend stashing your space change in a separate jar : it's amazing how quickly that mounts up and will really take the sting out of later

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  7. Yeh saw that after I posted the comment, sorry!

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  8. Have seen lots talking about doing this! Great idea and I'm going to give it a go but am thinking of alternating weeks to lessen the pain of the second half of the year - so one week put in amount from top of list and second week the amount from bottom and work forwards and backwards until they meet in the middle :) will be great to have a few quid saved at Christmas or even when I need to fill the bottomless oil tank next winter.

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  9. I puit all change (even €2 coins) into a old SMA tin. It fills up about twice a year. Minimum I get out of it os about €450. The max I had was over €750. Nice little bonus from the dust in the pocket, added kicker is the kids love counting it. Keeps them busy for a couple of hours. (Bigjoe_dub from the rwitter)

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    1. Joe, we're considerably posher than yew and use a champagne tin! Same principle though - all the shrapnel goes in and we cash it in once a year. My parents used to have The Elephant (a giant plastic blue elephant savings bank from Northern Bank) and it was our job to count the coins too

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  10. Love a bit of posh me. :) BJ

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