Have you ever tried this....

[Tiggerlover91]

.....charging yourself $1 everytime you write a check or use your debit card? DH and I were having some financial struggles so we talked to a friend who gave us this advice. Everytime you write a check, charge yourself a dollar. For example, you write a check to Walmart for $45.87, write in your register $46.87 or just round up completely and write $47. The money is never really gone and the bank will always show a bigger balance than you. I don't do change in my checkbook, so this is working really well for me. Before if I wrote a $21.56 check to K-Mart, I would just round up to $22, well now I go the extra dollar for my fee. Since I've been doing this in late August, there's an extra $83.00 dollars in my checking account. Somehow the bank also has $40 more than I can account for, so we're talking $123 that I've got whenever needed. Isn't that cool? I know that money is there, and I've never touched it. I have no reason to if that makes any sense. I'm also getting better about putting my tips into the bank. Before I would keep it on me, as much as $200 at a time and it would be gone in days!!! Now I only keep about $10 on me and it's working out just fine. Only DH has a debit card since we were having problems with both of us having one before so that's why I keep the cash and the checkbook. I also charge that $1 fee when DH uses the debit card....it's working wonderfully!! What a great way to save for a Disney trip right??? What a great way to save for anything!!
We also have a savings jar at home that we throw odd dollars and loose change into. There's about $50 in there right now. I'm so proud of myself. Money or finances has NEVER been my strong point, but I'm so glad the Father finally got me there. DH and I have this extra money "lying" around if we happen to need it. It's a great feeling and I'm so very proud of myself to have the discipline to not spend it!!

~~~Denise

 

[Lynn CC]

No I've never tried that, but I do try to save as many 5 dollar bills as I can. If we have one in our wallets we have to put it in our stack of $5 bills. I try purposefully to break a $10 or $20 and ask for $5's. You wouldn't believe how many stacks of hundreds you'll have by the time a year goes by. It's a fun way to save, then you can do whatever you want with your bills at the end of whenever you want! We have been saving ours since 2001. It's a silly way to save, but it's working for us!

 

[Micca]

I have never written down what I spent in a register.