Pennies add up

Need a quick and easy way to save?

Well here are two quick suggestions.

A)     Save the change:

This is something some banks offer so you will need to check with your bank to see.

The idea is quite simple, when you use your debit card to pay for something the price is rounded up to the next whole pound and this difference is then paid into a nominated savings account.

e.g.  price £5.25

    £6.00 leaves your current account

    £5.25 goes to the shop

    £0.75 transferred to your savings account

Here you save in small amounts as you shop so over the year it will add up.

The minor thing is it has to be a savings account at the same bank and may be only a few – usually the lowest interest account that they will pay the change into but any interest is better than no interest which is what most non-fee charging current accounts pay.

B)      Penny plus a daily penny:

This is quite simple, you take a jar and put a 1p in, the next day 2p then 3p and so on. This means that on the last day of the year you put in £3.65. Most days what you put in the jar costs less than a cup of coffee from one of those over-priced chains.

Now this starts small but it does get a bit more expensive as the year goes on so if you can not afford to do this for the full year perhaps do it for half a year instead of the whole year.

If you do do this for a whole year then on the last day you will have £667.95 in the jar at the end of the year. Now I would not suggest you keep this amount in the house at any one time. Every once in a while pay it into a savings account but keep track of what goes in the next day and so on. This way you also get a small amount of interest on it.

I have done this for a couple of years and it has paid for my hotel when I go away for a week so it is worth it to save for a specific goal.