Money in a bottle

Two points for today. First, money matters.

A good way to "save" money without even trying is putting spare change at the end of the day in a bottle or jar. We use one of those big plastic water bottles. Our plan usually revolves around summer vacation. We need money for gas, and gas has not exactly been cheap of late. For our vacation we drive to Upstate New York, about 11 hours from home. We easily spend $100+ on gas. But instead of charging this and making our vacation more expensive than it already will be, we use our change. Some years I have had as much as $130 in the jar!

One way to build up this nest, is to literally put all the spare money --change and bills $5 and under -- in the jar at the end of the day. It helps if it is difficult to get the money back out. Set a start and end date.

The year we had $130 we were helped by selling some things on Craigslist, so that was unusual. But this past year, even despite our challenges we still had more than $50. I can't say how much exactly because Chevy Chase changed their policies. They used to have a money counter you could use for free to count your coins. Then they changed it so you were charged if you brought in more than $100. Now, a few weeks ago when I went in, they charge you if you have more than $5. I am not paying some machine to count my money for me. So, we carried around the bag for awhile, used it to pay meters, park fees, ice cream, and anything else random. But we are asking God for a lot right now, and the other night I decided it would be nice to just donate the bag. So I put it in the Sunday collection.

Its great to see the money grow and it was always exciting to see how much money we had in there after the year. We are not perfect so we definitely raided the cookie jar from time to time, but getting in the habit of putting our money away and saving for a rainy day is fun, especially if you can watch it grow.

BARGAIN of the DAY: We had to go buy Dishwasher detergent today. It was 2.5 months since we bought it last. We paid $3.50 for it at Giant, 75 oz, powder. This compares with more than $5 for Cascade powder at Giant. We were at Target yesterday and their powder detergent was $3.79 I believe.

I got lucky at Giant, my seltzer was on sale too. So two one-liter bottles for $.80, not bad!

UPDATE: Aug. 22, 2009 -- I purchased Electrosol brand detergent, that was on sale. I should have just bought the generic Giant brand, if memory serves it was the same price and I have used in the past. I am very disappointed in the Electrosol, it leaves a film on my silverware and glasses that reminds me of an old detergent commercial (Cascade perhaps?) Anyway, haven't decided if I am going to keep using or scrap all together, but wanted it out there -- Electrosol, not so good :(