On January 1, 2017, I started saving $5 bills. I wanted to see if those “savings” pinterest plans worked – would I cave and use the money mid-June, or would I stick it out and have a nice wad of cash at the end of the year?
I STUCK IT OUT!
Now, I probably used about 6 $5 bills in 2017 due to emergency situations (probably ice cream that costed $4.96) Also, take into consideration how seldom we use cash compared to our cards now. Swiping or the chip-reader guy is quicker (less effort, let’s be real) than pulling out cash, waiting for change, putting away the change, holding up the check out line, etc. Not to mention, you save 5% with your Target RED card, so cash is out of the question there. So, I went through phases in 2017 of using cash.
Regardless – Every $5 bill I found in pockets, received in change, earned, exchanged, etc. went into a box. After a while, I started to put dollar bills in there, some big bills, and soon I was putting any spare cash I had in the box, hoping by December 31st, I’d have something substantial.
WELL, yesterday I counted it!
Here were the results of a 1 year long $5 bill savings experiment:
I saved 126 $5 bills. various $1 bills, some $100’s, a couple $50’s and $10’s, and some $20’s coming in above of $2,000. YO. 2k! Just for putting some cash in a box throughout the year that I didn’t even miss!
I wonder what it would’ve been spent on if I hadn’t saved it – God knows there wouldn’t be a significant increase in the number on my savings account. Now that I know it does work, I think I’ll keep it going!
Saving $5 bills is a habit of mine now. One thing I noticed during this experiment was the lack of $10 bills. I had only saved 4, but they are also less common among the other dollar bills in general.
So, I think I’ll start saving those, too!
Save something this coming year!
Maybe $1’s, maybe coins!
Whatever it is, I promise it’s a treat on December 31st :)
Godwinks 