Remember when you were a child and you received your first piggy bank?  You probably thought that if you could save every last penny you would be rich when you finally smashed it!  It was a great feeling to think about how much you were actually going to save, but what happened to that inner child’s enthusiasm about saving money?  Now that you are older, why has it become so difficult to follow the same principles?

If I was to ask you to spend a month and take all your change (and $1 bills if you really wanted to make it build quickly) from each day and dump it into a piggy bank, would you do it?  Or would you tell me that you never use cash and always use a credit card to make purchases?  Would you tell me that you thought it was too difficult?  Or that you did not want to go to the bank and cash all the change in?  I’ve heard every excuse before, but bear with me… when you start looking for change, this can be fun and rewarding!

Let’s see if you can try that concept for a month or two and see how much you can save.  Then, conceptually let’s determine how you will use the change for your benefit:

1. You can start to actually use the change!  Many people overlook the types of things that you could use change for: vending machines, laundry, tip jars, newspapers, tolls booths, making a wish at a fountain, etc.  Start acknowledging that your change is REAL money and put it to good use!

2. You could roll up your change and bring it to the bank for dollar bills or deposit it right into your savings account.  Check your bank’s policy ahead of time to ensure that they accept rolls of change before you roll it.  (Do NOT forget that a quarter roll is $10, a dime roll is $5, a nickel roll is $2 and a penny roll is $0.50!)  Also, if you do not have the desire to count the change yourself, check out these nifty gadgets that could help you out: Electronic Money Jar or Money Machine.

3. To avoid having to manually roll your coins up you could use a service like Coinstar, which is a company that allows you to bring your loose change to one of their kiosks and it will count it for you.  Coinstar’s initial concept was to charge you a percentage of your change as a fee for the service, but now as an alternative you can go penny-for-penny with a gift card to an assortment of popular shops or take part in their Coins That Count donation program.  Check out the shops including Gap, Amazon.com, Starbucks, etc. at Coinstar gift cards and/or the donation program at  Coins That Count.

4. Bank of America’s Keep the Change program is also out there for all of you with the excuse that you only use your debit cards.  When using Bank of America’s Keep The Change program, Bank of America will match 100% of the first 3 months and then 5% after that up to $250 per year = FREE MONEY!  If you have a Bank of America account, you would be silly not to be enrolled in this plan!

Now, if I was to ask you to spend a month and take all your change from each day and dump it into a piggy bank would you do it?  How much do you think you could actually save in this time period?  Tell me your thoughts on this saving concept in the comment section below.