I am always looking for different and innovative ways to save a couple dollars. I feel that the biggest trait to have when it comes to saving money is discipline. Whether it is living below your means, following a budget or stashing 10-15% of your income into a retirement account, it takes a good amount of financial discipline to achieve the goals that you set for yourself. Unfortunately, I do not have the discipline of Mister Miyagi, but rather that of Daniel-san so I have a lot of work ahead of me…
…Wax on…Wax off…Wax on… Wax off…
Becoming Financially Disciplined
A couple days ago, I ran into a post on facebook regarding saving money for 2013. It was an interesting concept on stashing extra cash into savings. The small amount that you put away will not take too much of a hit in your wallets. It will trick you into being a little more disciplined with saving money also. You start with $1.00 and deposit it into a savings account the first week of the year. Each following week, you increase the weekly contribution by another $1.00. So in week 2 (which is this week) you deposit $2.00, in week 3 $3.00 and so forth until week 52 where you deposit $52 that week. By the end of the year, you will have $1378 in your savings account! You will have even more if you deposit it into an account that earns more interest than your average bank, like ING Direct. You can get up to a $50 bonus for opening an ING Direct account through my referral link here.
My wife says I am an “Excel Nerd” so I had to make a little chart (self-fulfilling prophecy?) of the weekly breakdown of this savings plan. It helps me visualize how the weekly savings will add up fairly quickly. Do you see the total amount of savings at the bottom right of the chart? Yep, that’s an extra $1378 of savings if you stay disciplined and follow the savings plan. The best thing is that you are at most depositing $52. That is one night’s bar tab! Now imagine the savings if you scale the weekly savings up by doubling or even tripling the contribution!!
Here is a a graphic visual of how your savings will grow each week. Do you see how your savings dramatically grows by increasing your weekly savings by just $1.00? Just imaging how much more the savings will be if you increased it by $2.00, or $3.00! The graph will have a steeper curve, which equates to more savings. And the difference is the price of a fancy coffee!
I am going to try this to save an extra $1378 this year into a savings account. And since I am Running From Debt, I am going to up the ante and also match each week dollar for dollar and pay that amount off on my student loan debt. So by the end of the year, I will have saved $1378 AND paid off an extra $1378 in debt!
…Focus, Daniel-san, Focus!!!…
What do you think? Do you care to join me in this endeavor of improving financial discipline? If you make savings a habit and discipline a character trait, you will become more in control of your financial destiny. Leave a comment below and let me know if you are up to the challenge!!!
Thank you for running with me!
De Angela Sanders January 15, 2013 at 9:15 am
Thank you for recreating and posting this. I saw this on FB and wanted to make sure I printed it to remind me of my goals.
Ron January 16, 2013 at 5:23 am
Your Welcome! Thank you for stopping by my blog and good luck to your goals this year!!
Joanna January 15, 2013 at 9:30 pm
Interesting strategy. It sounds like a little change that will make a good chunk of change. This might be a dumb question about technicalities but how would you go about depositing one more dollar each week? Would you save a dollar in cash each week then deposit it or ?
Ron January 16, 2013 at 5:27 am
Hi Joanna, Every Monday I just do a direct transfer to my ING savings account. You can have multiple sub-accounts on ING. I have a couple sub-accounts where I name them vacation, emergency fund, etc. I set up a new one called “2013 extra savings” and I just deposit the money in there. This week I deposited $3.00 in it. Next Monday, I will deposit $4.00. It’s slow to add up, but it doesn’t really put a dent on your budget and it will grow and earn some interest, more than my brick-and-mortar bank’s savings account does.
Hope this helps!
Nurse Frugal January 27, 2013 at 9:33 pm
Love the idea, very helpful! I should share this with my spendy friends and see what one night’s bar tab can do if they save it every now and then! My goal for this year is just to pay off the mortgage and max out our yearly 401 contributions
Ron January 29, 2013 at 7:46 pm
Thanks! Please feel free to share this with every one of your friends! My friends didn’t believe that you can save that much with “so little contributions” until they saw the spreadsheet!! a little saving here and there goes a long way. Good luck on your goals this year! That’s an awesome goal. Can’t wait to read it on your blog!
Do or Debt January 28, 2013 at 11:08 am
First off, I love your site! I am also trying to pay off my massive student loans too and I hate running so much, but it is something I am interested in trying. Great mission and inspiring blog
I have an ING account and love it. How do you make sub accounts? I guess I haven’t looked into it.
I’d love to join you in this!
Ron January 29, 2013 at 7:57 pm
Thanks for stopping by and visiting my site!! I didn’t like running at first. I got into it about 2 years ago because I wanted to lose my grad school belly! Being the goal oriented person that I am, I knew that if I signed up for a half marathon, It would give me the motivation to get out there and run. I’m not going to lie to you, I hated it at first. I still hate it at times!! But I do like the feeling of running a distance I never knew I could. I would suggest to sign up for a race like a 5K or 10K and go from there. The raceday experience is pretty amazing!!
As far as setting up a sub-account in ING Direct, all you have to do is log in to your account and create a new account. It automatically creates it as a sub-account and you can nickname it whatever you like. I have a couple that I’ve named for “Vacation”, “Emergency”, “2013 extra savings”, etc… It’s pretty simple.
Can’t wait to read about your progress!!