One of the snippets that intrigued me the most was a woman in NYC who decided that she would quit spending $5 bills. She had quit using credit and debit cards and gave herself a weekly cash allowance that was spit out of the ATM in $20 bills. Granted, she was in NYC, so the allowance was more than a normal Midwesterner should spend in a month, let alone a week; but still, I admire her discipline.
So, every time she made a purchase, she would hand the cashier a $20 bill. If she received a fiver back, it went into a separate compartment to be deposited later. This savvy girl even opened a separate savings account (with no fees) to track her $5 bill stash.
Picture it: NYC, 2008. Three dollar latte - hand over a $20. There's no way to get change for that without getting a 5 back (unless you get a fistful of 1's). That's $5 to stash. Eleven dollar lunch (it is NYC, remember) - hand over a $20. Another 5. Stop at the store on the way home for a gallon of milk - hand over a $20. Another 5. That's $15 in three transactions.
This scenario happened for this woman on a near daily basis. She didn't ever cook at home, stopped at Starbuck's at least once a day, ate lunch out every day. Just pretty lazy. I digress.
Imagine this played out for you once a week with three $20 bills. That's $15 a week or $780 a year. Remember, you've been putting this money in a separate savings account so you're earning interest on your savings. Our savvy saver from NPR managed to save over $2000 the first year.
So, I've been doing this little experiment myself for almost two years now. I have to tell you, nothing irritates me more than stopping for a Diet Pepsi ($1.38 at Speedway), handing the clerk a $20 and getting three fives, three ones, and 62 cents of "jingle change" back - that means, essentially, that I just bought a $16.38 Diet Pepsi! I digress again.
Last year I decided I would deposit my $5 bills every two weeks, then transfer it to a separate ShareBuilder account. I even got a $25 bonus for opening a new account! There's one quarter to go to complete two years and, so far, there's over $2000 in that account. $1700 of it is from $5 bills and the rest is dividends and an increase in market value of the holdings.
I think that's pretty impressive!
