When I was quitting smoking, every time I bought a pack I had to put $20 into savings. I didn't save much but I stopped buying the smokes fairly quickly.

uhh yeah maybe if you just put away like 10% of your paycheck each payperiod you could save a ton that way to..

weird how you save when you save your money haha

I'm not clear on how this would help you in the long run ... I feel like I'd just run out of cash faster and need to go back to the ATM for more $20s that I'd eventually get back in change for $5s which I would put aside and then run out of cash again cause I'd put them aside.

Maybe this is a total no-brainer, but I do do the "out of sight, out of mind" thing myself, except not with cash. I just have a recurring transfer set up in my online banking so every payday a certain amount is automatically transferred to my savings. And then I DON'T TOUCH IT.

I tried the saving every $5 bill trick for a trip that I took last weekend. Over the course of 3 weeks, I saved up $165 in $5s. The day of my trip, I changed them in for $20s at the local bank instead of visiting the ATM. The money covered my expenses for that weekend.

$427 is not evenly divisible by $5. Interest?

I find the title misleading as "Reader Saves $427 By Saving Save Every $5 Bill". How do you save $7 by saving only $5 bills?? Maybe it should be changed to "Reader Saves $427 By Saving Save Every bill $5 Or Under"?

Personally, I transfer $500 a month to my saving. Money there is only used for major purchases... such as, a new fridge...

@Coder4Life: ditto - i have 10% of my paycheck direct deposited into my ing acct. don't even miss it b/c i don't get to see it.

only problem is, i tend to hit that up more often than i should, so i have another 5% going into a CU account i have had since i was 14 - i don't have checks or a debit card or any other way to access that money (aside from getting in my car & driving 350 miles round-trip during the work week).

I can imagine that this would have a serious impact on one's spending too...if you say to yourself "if I buy that $14.95 thing it really costs $20.00" you might not buy that thing.

And God forbid you buy something for $3.50 and get back 3 $5 bills!

That's a lot of $5 footlongs!

@dmuth: Interesting, but do you know whether you actually spent less money than you otherwise would have, or did you just spend it in a different pattern?

I rarely ever carry cash, $5 is usually my limit. I have automatic withdraw to my 401k with each paycheck plus automatic transfers to two different savings accounts each paycheck.

Those automatic things are great but what has really helped me boost up my savings was my second job waiting tables I got about 6 weeks ago, I already have an extra $4200 in the bank in only 6 weeks thanks to that job.

@webwbr: Reading: Sometimes I'll also supplement it at the end of a day by removing all bills smaller than $20 from my wallet.

@mac-phisto: Make sure you don't lose that account to the state b/c you don't take anything out. I know the chance is slim, but hey.

@jscott73: Not exactly sure why I said 6 weeks, it has been 12 weeks already but still not too bad...

@webwbr: Read the post to find:

Sometimes I'll also supplement it at the end of a day by removing all bills smaller than $20 from my wallet.

Hmm...
This is the same thing I read in a magazine when I was a child. Save .50 a day for 5 yrs or something, and you'll get like $990 in savings by the time you're done.

I actually started doing this after reading that post and have loved it. I've probably only put away $75- $100, but it's a cool psychological affirmation. I call it "embezzling from myself."

@PercyChuggs: Or one awesome 85 foot sub! :D

I don't deal with much cash so this wouldn't work well for me. . . . Now if I snag every $5 bill from my wife's purse and stash it away it might amount to something!

I've been doing this for a few months now and I've already saved almost $200. And I also do the automatic withdraw for 401K and Savings.

When I have to break a $20 it does make me think if I really need something that is less than $5 knowing that if I do, I'll have to put at least $5 of it away.

I don't think it's so much of a savings mechanism as a way to make you stop and think about what you're about to purchase.

I started this after that post as well. I printed out a pic of Lincoln and wrote "THE LINCOLN PROJECT" on a box. My wife thinks I'm crazy, but hey, anything to try to get some mad money saved up.

I've saved maybe 85 to $100 or so. I don't know exactly how much and I won't be finding out for a long time. That box stays sealed up until I can't fit any more bills into it.

I've been doing the same thing as OP, except I save all my $2 bills. I've been doing it for four years, and I've now saved $6.

If you want to save cash, you could try what my co-workers does, she buys 2 dollar bills, she likes them so much she doesn't want to spend them. She has saved a few hundred this way - She calls it her $2 Emergency fund

Yeah this is fun! It keeps me a bit less free-spending, and I've piled up a couple of hundred bucks. Trying to decide how to apply it.

I have been doing this sort of thing also ever since y'all ran that article about saving five dollar bills. Although my savings isn't as great as the one reported, being 17 years old, it feels good having a money around for the upcoming turbulent times of college and afterwards.

Why don't you just go to the ATM, pull out $425, stick it in an envelope, then not spend the time doing it every day for eight weeks?

Maybe this whole idea should be retitled "How to Fool Yourself with Jedi Mind Tricks!"?

Of course, I know some people don't have the $425 at the beginning. So just use some discipline, put aside $XX per week. Does it really help to play these games? Reminds me of people who set their clocks ahead by 5 minutes so they won't be late. How can you "forget" that your clock is wrong?

I've never really liked "gimmick" methods of savings. I suppose they work for some people, but I'd rather just use the Automatic Savings Plan through ING like I do right now.

My wife does this, but in a weird Sopranos kind of way. She randomly puts $1 and $5 bills in various places in the house. For instance, there's probably $20 in various bills in one drawer in the dining room hutch, $10 in her nightstand drawer, $25 in one of her dresser drawers, etc. Every time I go looking for a random paper or doohickey I find loose bills.

I asked her once if she conciously put these there, and she said they just happen to get put there when she finds them in her pocket. One day, I swear to God I'm going to find stacks of $20 bills in an unused compost bin in the backyard.

@TPK:
trust me it works!
My clocks are 15 mins fast and I even did my car clock.
You just glance at the clock and register the time. Same thing as when you change your clocks to daylight savings, you might know that your clock is "off" on hour for the first few days but then it becomes normal

I'm up to $800 since July 25th. No tricks, really. Just pure will power. And I don't ask for different change. If I get $15 back in fives, I don't ask for a ten and a five instead. I take it and work around the rest of my daily purchases.

Another thing I do, is at the end of every day, I change in all of the singles I might have in my wallet/pockets/backpack/couch cushions for crisp new fives (or put singles in multiples of fives into the special savings envelope).

I have a separate high-interest online savings account where I keep my "fives" and have earned $2.66 in interest in just over two months.

And, yes, this is a gimmick, but it is a gimmick I use in addition to putting away almost 1/4 of my paycheck each week into savings and investments.

@katerrific: nice! The Dethklok method!

I have been doing this for years.
I take out all my tens and twenty's out of my wallet and leave myself with $20.00 for the week for gas, coffee etc.
and I MAKE myself get by with that amount. I am amazed at how much money I used to blow at Dunkin Donuts or snacks at Turkey Hill. I saved up $3000 last year.

@Spaceman Bill Leah has the Crazy Eyes: That's a great idea.

I think tricking yourself into saving is only going to go so far. Why not just come up with a monthly budget and carve out a portion for savings?

Who "blows $5 on parking every day"? I certainly don't- that would be $1825.00 a year... You should have just called this post "How not to be an idiot throwing away money for nothing"

@Git Em SteveDave loves this guy-->: That's impossible: deposits also count as activity on your account.

I LOVE THIS TRICK! I've been using it since early September and I've amassed a few hundred bucks. My elderly parents are using it too, they are on a fixed income and the extra money came in handy at the end of the month for gas. I told several girlfriends and they have started their funds and say it's growing fast.

@Coder4Life: But maybe this person DOES already save 10% of his salary, automatically or otherwise. I certainly do (actually, 15% including the company match), but I'm always looking for ways like this to "trick" myself because I'm just awful with cash. Thus, if I have an extra dollar or five at the end of the day somehow, I immediately dump it into my jar o' change and checks. Within a few weeks, that gets thrown into a savings account.

I mean, really, who WOULDN'T like to save a little extra in a way that won't hurt?

@TPK: Yes, it totally helps to play these "games." Not everyone's brains work the same -- a visual learner is different from an aural learner is different from a book learner. All of us have tricks for saving, even if we don't recognize it as such.

I don't often carry cash, but when I do, I'm dangerous. Thus, if I'm going to a street fair or such, I'll take out, say, $20 for fun. After the fair, I might come home with $9. I immediately dump that $9 into the jar o' change and checks for later deposit into a savings account. It feels GOOD to see that little bit of money pile up, and it's POSITIVE REENFORCEMENT because I did not spend that money! I figure I already took it out of my account once, so it's already gone. Might as well "spend" it in a responsible way -- savings.

@TPK: Oh, and I also set my clocks ahead. I might set the bedroom one 11 minutes fast, the bathroom one 16 minutes fast, and the microwave 7 minutes fast. I know that they're all fast, but the uneven times keep me on my toes. Plus, Rockergal is right -- you eventually forget for the most part.

@InfiniTrent: But this is what I don't understand with this thread -- why can't you do both? Just as you might have a number of savings accounts, isn't saving "extra" $5 bills, or quarters, or pennies in a jar or something just additional savings? Sure, it's a smaller amount than that 10% automatic deduction, but some of us need to FEEL that cash slipping out of our hands and into a savings jar (later an account) to understand and be proud that we saved money instead of spent it.

@DarkKnightShyamalan: Why not do both? Have your automatic savings/budget PLUS save the leftovers in a way that works for you. It's not hard, really. In your budget, I'd imagine that you'd have a category for food/restaurants or entertainment/concerts/sports games. It also stands to reason that you might take out cash for some of those events. Thus, if you don't blow your whole cash wad at a game or whatever, just put it in a jar until it adds up and you deposit it.

@Angryrider: Hmmm... my allowance was only $1.00 a week until I was like 14 or something like that...

@kidnextdoor: AWESOME

I monitor my accounts very closely (graduated accounting, though not working as one). Every payday, I leave $400 plus my upcoming monthly payments (at this point, that's a $714.54 car payment and $22.60 pay-as-you-go phone payment) to last me until the next pay day (every two weeks). After a couple of of bigger purchases (about $2,000 total), I've saved almost $8,000 in 4 months.
It'll be a nice down payment on a house in 1-2 years...

I save by not spending. It's a novel concept, sure, but it works for me.

I've been doing this since the original post but I'm not convinced that I'm actually 'saving' the money, because it seems to me that I just get more money out of the ATM when I'm down to my last $20 in cash -- there's no mechanism I'm employing to keep myself from withdrawing/spending more than xxx dollars per week.

So I've just ended up with a HUGE wad of fives; if I put these back into a savings account, am I really saving them, or just sort of recycling them?

Line 6 of a W-4 says "Additional amount, if any, you want withheld from each paycheck." Sure, the government gets to earn interest on it instead of me, but that little overlooked line is good for $1040 each year on my taxes.