As college students, our budgets are often pretty limited, and with the holiday season (including, yay, BLACK FRIDAY!) approaching us rather fast, I decided to share a great way to save Collegiette style.
What is this idea? Fill a jar with change!
Find some sort of receptacle, whether it be Mason jar, a neat vase, anything that can hold a decent amount of change, and start saving. As a server in a restaurant, I always have tons of change, and once you no longer have to waste quarters on laundry in the dorms, loose change adds up pretty quickly. Now, I don’t go out of my way to pick up loose change off the ground (I am actually somewhat of a germaphobe); however, if I do see some along my way, I definitely save it for later.
Once your receptacle of choice is filled, then you can either go old school and exchange and/or deposit rolls of coins at the bank, or be willing to part with a small percentage and exchange it for cash at automatic machines. However, how do you choose what to put the extra money to? Well, I am going to Florida for a week over winter break with my boyfriend so I have been saving up loose change to dedicate for spending money, thankfully his grandparents live down there and purchased our plane tickets, so that was a nice little present. However, I plan on making several jars the next time with one dedicated to tuition, another to some sort of splurge, and another to donate to a local charity. The possibilities are endless, one penny might not add up to much, but a whole jar full is more than you had before! I have named it my “Florida Fund” because I would love to come back with cute knickknacks, shoes and clothes of course!
This is also a good way to break old habits because you can make a swear jar for you and your roommates or co-workers and then decide what you want to put the stash of coins towards amongst yourselves.
Also, as a server I run into having tons and tons of ones, especially if I just let them all pile up and don’t exchange them for larger bills. I have found myself sticking one dollar in my “Florida Fund” per shift that I work, so that I am guaranteed to have it saved up until my trip.
This concept of stowing it away for a rainy day fund is pretty flexible considering you create the rules and you decide what to spend it on. But it is also incredibly surprising because sometimes you can have a lot more from just a jar of change than you expected- a new scarf, some discipline, better money skills, the possibilities are endless!