Monday 9 November 2015

Scrooge

Well, not quite. I'm not actually miserly and I dread the thought of being haunted by Christmasses past ( why is it that the Christmas 'holidays' often seem so fraught?!).

Mr D and I decided to take the various small change jars to Tesco to get them counted in their machine and exchanged for cash. HOWEVER, when I read the small print, it turns out they take 9.9p per £1 counted! What a rip off, so the jars were all brought home and we set about counting them out. It was quite fun actually and didn't take us quite as long as we had thought it would. We have separated it out into the correct coinage for the money bags and I now need to take it to the bank. It wasn't a bad stash, coming to over £60 across the various pots. It's an easy way to save really.

There are three piles for the three different people's change pots. Daughter number two who is now in America had over £40 in hers! 

Talking of saving, I have been inspired by Mrs Escape over at Our Escape (see side bar) to keep a more active record of our savings. At the end of every month, I transfer anything leftover into our savings account which is growing nicely, but I felt like I'd be inspired with a visual.
Presenting the savings thermometer :-

This is now stuck on the wall in the kitchen. 

I am able to start it off with a lump sum as the solicitor has released my expenditure from when Mum was ill. I had sent off the Power of Attorney to the Office of the Public Guardian to be able to use Mums money, but they sent the completed form back the day after she had died, some 9 weeks and multiple snotty phone calls after I had originally sent it to them!! They did at least have the grace to apologise and refund the £110. Still it now means a good starting point when I add that, a refund on her car tax and the money from the savings jar. We are also slowly working through selling some items on eBay and any monies from this will be added to the pot along with the usual 'endofthemonth' leftovers. I've planned a starting goal of £5,000 to see how we go.

15 comments:

  1. It is a rip off when they charge you for the change machine, they use the change for the tills as it saves them having to order in change from the bank a service they get charged for so they are in a win win situation, great to have a visual on how your savings are growing :-)

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  2. A visual savings chart is a good plant. Remeniscient of star charts when we were small.

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    1. I work best with visual stimulus so it should help spur me on.

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  3. We have used these in the past, but never again. The time it takes to count the money is negligible really and apart from getting dirty, smelly hands is quite fun, as you say. I think a lot of folk use these machines for the ease of it and because a lot of banks, even those you have accounts with can get very snotty when you go in with bags and bags of change, and if you don;t have an account they often refuse point blank, which in my opinion is very wrong.

    We intend to count the contents of our Sealed Pot ourselves and use the money for next years challenge .... once I have faced the wrath of the bank teller that is ;-)

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    1. I had no idea they would charge me that much! Bloody cheek considering its a machine!!

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  4. I took our coin bags into our bank and the proceeds - £ 18 - went straight into our savings account. It must have been a popular day at the end of October as the bloke behind me was doing the same and the poor fellow dropped some bags which split!! I helped him pick up but not to re-count!!

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    1. Oh poor chap - I'll be on high alert to hold on tight to mine now!!

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  5. I have a pot that I will open in December. My food budget is £150 a month. Anything I manage to save from that goes straight in the pot. Growing our own vegetables, meal planning and researching before shopping has all helped keep our food bill down. Hubby hasn't noticed any changes apart from running out of cereal last month I 'm hoping the money in the pot is going to pay for a lot of presents.

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    1. That's a good amount per month. It feels great to be able to squirrel some away. Even small amounts add up over time.

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  6. I didn't realise the coin machines took as much as that for using the service! Luckily our bank is fine about taking bags of coins as we've done fairly well this year with pain free change savings, we have £10 in 20p coins to take in tomorrow - for some reason that seems like a massive achievement.

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    1. What a blinking cheek eh? It's a machine counting it - a total rip off. I'm pleased I read the small print at least.

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  7. I'm so glad you avoided using one of those machines. A VERY famous frugal blogger used one a couple of years ago and it took £6 of her money(I think) and I couldn't believe she couldn't be bothered to count it. Mind you, she has a second home abroad now so obviously didn't need that £6!!

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    1. I previously had no clue that they would charge you for it. I'm pleased I read the small print before tipping the coins in - I would have been spitting tacks!!

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  8. That would have been a tidy sum they would have had from you, good job you read the small print!

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