Those Dollars
By Jim Bauer
@porwest (112876)
United States
December 1, 2024 7:02am CST
Almost everyone has a coin jar that they toss their change into, to periodically take to the bank and cash out to either deposit into a savings account, or just simply spend it. Of course, I always advocate for putting it somewhere where it has an opportunity to grow. But let's face it, many people aren't savers.
But the point is that nearly everyone saves their change. I do too. I keep a jar for my nickels, dimes and quarters, and another one just for pennies.
One thing anyone knows who has ever done this, is that those jars fill up quickly and add up to quite a bit of money. If you happen to use cash, of course, and while many people only use plastic these days, there are still a lot of people using cash.
I have upped the game over the years. Not only do I put my change into jars, I put my dollars into an envelope. In other words, just like I don't spend my change, when I break 20s, 10s and 5s, I don't spend my dollars.
Just like my change, those dollars are set aside.
The key to this is that there is always a way to save something, and all we have to do is look for the ways and then do it. The dollars, just like the change, adds up, and just like we don't miss the loose change we toss into jars, we won't miss the dollars we stash in an envelope either.
What it makes you realize, especially if you happen to be one who believes you can't save, is that you're just making excuses. The reality is that you really can. You just have to do it.
10 people like this
8 responses
@lovebuglena (52147)
• Staten Island, New York
2 Dec 24
Have you ever started a swear jar where you put a $1 every time you swear or perhaps say a specific word?
2 people like this
@lovebuglena (52147)
• Staten Island, New York
2 Dec 24
@porwest I’ve never tried doing it. Maybe I should lol.
1 person likes this
@kareng (80243)
• United States
18 Dec 24
Right the key is the discipline to just do it and stick with it! We save change here and always have. I remember when I was living in my first apartment and my cousin stayed for a few months until he could find a place of his own. He pitched in to my change jar because he hated change in his pocket. We would hit the jar at the end of the month when we were both broke and splurge for a trip to the pizza parlor.
1 person likes this
@porwest (112876)
• United States
22 Dec 24
Yes, always "free" money. I found a penny walking out of the store the other day when I picked up my lottery ticket. Wish it had been a "lucky" one!!
@kareng I was happy that someone gave me a cart at Aldi yesterday and didn't want my quarter, and no one beat me to the corral, so I made 25 cents. lol
1 person likes this
@FourWalls (86713)
• United States
1 Dec 24
I was on the Morale Committee when I was stationed in Pearl Harbor, and one of the things I came up with was an “unwanted penny fund” to help fund our events. People would toss any pennies they had into it. JUST WITH PENNIES we had over $42 to put in the fund. That’s 4,200 pennies! (I got a letter of recommendation for that silly idea, believe it or not.)
My “change jar” is actually an old Tootsie Roll bank.
2 people like this
@porwest (112876)
• United States
15 Dec 24
Years and years and years ago I had a Tootsie Roll bank. God knows what ever happened to it. Now I keep my pennies in a jar I have had for about 30 years that was an old meat stick container when I ran the ship's store on the Enterprise.
As for unwanted pennies, I tend to find tons of them on the ground in parking lots and on top of change machines near vending machines. I scoop all of them up gladly and am actually quite diligent to look for them.
Even at casinos, many people leave slips on the machines worth a few cents because they don't want to bother to cash them in. I put them into the machine and use them. lol
My wife picks on me at certain casinos where the slip machines won't pay out the coins. I won't leave them behind and will stand in line at the cashier to get every single cent due to me. It's one thing to give your money away when you gamble, but entirely another to LITERALLY give it away.
2 people like this
@LindaOHio (222417)
• United States
2 Dec 24
I need to go through and wrap some change. Have a good week.
1 person likes this
@LindaOHio (222417)
• United States
3 Dec 24
@porwest I'll have to check with our bank.
1 person likes this
@porwest (112876)
• United States
15 Dec 24
@LindaOHio Not all banks have them. My mom's bank, for example, requires one to turn in their coins, then they send them out, and you have to wait to get a count and then deposit it. Seems a stupid way to do it, to me, and I think every bank should have coin counters as part of their service. But I suppose at the same time, banks determine the need based on volume. I might be naive to consider most people save change and cash it in. Maybe not as many people do it as I think, which would explain why a lot of banks don't have coin counters.
2 people like this
@dgobucks226 (37621)
•
9 Dec 24
I don't save change. I'm trying to die penniless, lol. However, I do have a jar for keeping dollar bills. Guess I like to think big. 
2 people like this
@dgobucks226 (37621)
•
18 Dec 24
@porwest Yes, well said. Money definitely improves your bargaining power! 
1 person likes this
@porwest (112876)
• United States
17 Dec 24
@dgobucks226 As I have said many times before, beyond anything, the purpose of money to me is to have freedom to choose. You can choose where you work. You can choose where you live. You can choose when you want to take a vacation and to where. And you can choose when you want to stop working.
If one lacks money, those choices are made FOR them in most cases. The more money I have, the more freedom I have and the better options I have for the choices I make.
2 people like this
@porwest (112876)
• United States
16 Feb 25
Any habit that forces one to keep more of what they earn, and put their money to work for them rather than always have to work for IT, is a good habit to have.
The key goal for me is to save and invest in a way that eventually you no longer need to work for an income. The only reason people work is because they need money. If at some point they have it, and that money earns for them, they no longer need the work to get it.
To me, life is way too short to spend all of it working just to get to a point where you not only can no longer work, but you are also too old to enjoy the freedom of not working.
