Save your savings
By glblguy
I love the challenge of finding the best price on something I’m going to buy. I needed new light bulbs for my saltwater aquarium yesterday. The initial price I found was around $40.00 per bulb. After a 1/2 hour or so reading through some forums, I found a site that carried the same bulb for $26.00. That’s a savings of $14.00 per bulb. I needed 4 of them equating to an overall savings of $56.00!
Last week I was talking with my Dad who had been looking at computer monitors at the local electronics store. He was about to buy one, but decided to go home and check prices online first. He went home and found the same monitor for sale at TigerDirect.com considerably cheaper and purchased it online instead.
Save your savings
I hear you saying: “So what, anyone that’s even slightly frugal knows to do this Glblguy.” I agree, but here comes he great idea. While talking to my Dad about this, he says: “I’ve got a great idea for an article for you Glblson. How about instead of spending the money that you save when you find a great deal, save it instead. If you did this each time at the end of the year you would have a pretty good chunk of money.”
I thought this was a great idea and just had to share it with you. What if you took the money you saved each time you found a great deal and saved it, how much would you have? After all, it’s money that you most likely would have spent anyway had you not found the lower price. Frankly if you don’t save it, you’ll most likely just spend it somewhere else.
Here are just a few ideas of what you could do with those savings:
- Save the money – Each time you make a purchase for something at a lower cost, take the savings and immediately transfer it to your ING savings account (or which ever bank you use). Let’s just say you stash away $50/month, 12 months from now you would have $600.00, not counting the interest you would earn.
- Snowflake it – In debt? How about using that money to make snowflake payments against your debt? Over time, these small savings and payments could really make a big dent and significantly accelerate your debt snowball.
- Invest it – Already have a decent savings and are debt free? Take those savings and invest them. This option could really add up overtime, especially in you make smart investments. I prefer mutual funds.
Saving my savings
I started this weekend saving my savings. I took the $56 dollars I saved purchasing the aquarium lights and made a snowflake payment against one of my credit cards. I’m going to begin using this tactic on all of my savings and tracking the amounts in a spreadsheet (yes, I love spreadsheets). I’ll update you throughout he remainder of the year on how much I’ve been able to snowflake against my credit cards using this method.
I’ll challenge you to do the same, and when I post my updates it would be awesome if you could share your total savings as well. If you’re up to the challenge, add a comment and share with everyone else whether you’ll be saving yours, snowflaking it, investing it, or maybe even doing something else with it.
Let’s see how much money we can all save by just spending sometime deal shopping! Oh, and thanks Dad for the great idea!
This article is part of an ongoing series called Money Saving Monday. Each Monday, I share tips and techniques you can use to start saving money.
Photo by: voobie
February 16th, 2009 at 7:58 am
I feel joy when a I score a big savings on the same item from a different seller.
This “Save the Savings” is a wonderful technique, but I must admit, that I do not yet have the self discipline to personally implement it . . .
Something to aspire to, I guess.
February 16th, 2009 at 9:29 am
I agree…I absolutely despise paying retail for anything. I’m always looking for a discount, a bargain, or a blue-light special of some kind.
I like your concept…I would fight the feeling that I’m still not saving any money because now the money is still somewhere else (even if it still goes to your savings account or to pay off debt).
Good idea though!
February 16th, 2009 at 10:12 am
The idea was great! The strategy of saving money for a future cause will be a good help. Instead of spending it for online shopping even if it is a bargain, or discounted price just don’t take a risk of grabbing it…just take some time of thinking if you needed it badly or not.
Just save your savings for future use…
February 16th, 2009 at 10:37 am
This is how we paid of all our non-mortgage debt – earlier then we expected!
Whatever we saved or came in low on in our budget, that cash would get transferred to the debt the same day (all our debt was out line of credit).
My theory is, if you leave it in the bank account, you’ll find ways to fritter it away.
February 16th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Great post! I like the idea of looking at what you save when you look for a deal (on something you’d buy anyway, of course!) and then taking those savings and doing more with it. It goes back to letting your money work for you.
February 16th, 2009 at 11:13 am
I do this every time I go to the grocery store – my store puts a note on the bottom: This order you saved $XX”. I take that receipt home and immediately transfer that amount to my “snowflake” account at ing. It adds up in a hurry! Never thought about doing it on bigger purchases – i think I’ll start that now, too. Thanks for the great tip.
February 16th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
It sounds like a good strategy but takes a lot of effort to keep track and transfer money. If you save $3 you probably aren’t going to transfer those savings to your ING account. You should just set up an amount per week or month to save an transfer the whole bunch.
February 16th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I love the “Save the Savings” idea.
Until we were out of debt when we used this plan. Whenever we would save money on a purchase or avoid a purchase all together (rent a movie instead of going to a movie) we would take the amount we just saved and made an electronic payment towards a debt as soon as we got back home.
Its a easier to skip a cup of coffee if 15 minutes later you reward yourself for the “sacrifice” Even if it was only an extra $4 worth of progress.
February 16th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
My wife just jumped both feet on couponing bandwagon. She is snowflaking leftover toward vacation…or she better be :-)
Great idea.
February 16th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
That is an interesting concept. If only there was some automated way of keeping track of this, it would be really effective. I don’t know why anyone shops for electronics at brick and mortar stores anymore. It seems like there’s always a better deal online. Great post!
February 16th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Ha! I like it. Sounds like a fun way to translate what you “save” into trackable future benefit.
February 17th, 2009 at 1:01 am
I love your site, and am an avid reader of yours. I love this idea, though I don’t have an ing account any longer, aren’t we all limited to the number of transfers that can be made into and out of accounts? I love this idea of “saving the savings,” and would love to transfer each and every time I save, but one can only make so many transfers in a 30 day period. I also love the idea of ‘saving’ what my grocery receipt alleges I ‘saved’ by shopping there. I’m starting this the very next time I see a “savings” note, or by comparison shopping and seeing my savings in black & white. Keep it up!
February 17th, 2009 at 5:18 am
Hi Pattie. I transfer the money into an ING checking account from my main checking (local bank) and then into a savings account. There is a limitation on withdrawals, but not deposits. Unless your bank has some limitation in place on you checking account (which I would doubt) you can transfer all you want INTO savings account.
I loved the idea of saving the grocery store savings as well, and in face my wife and I did it yesterday. $30 extra snowflaked against my credit card.
Thanks for reading Pattie, very glad to have you and everyone else that has commented.
February 17th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Great article. I’m going to start tracking my grocery savings and putting the extra money on my last credit card debt. It will be fun to see how much money is saved at the end of the year.