~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Publishing Guidelines: This article may be freely distributed so long as the copyright, author's information and an active link (where possible) are included. A complimentary copy of any newsletter or a link to the website where the article is posted would be greatly appreciated.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Money Jar Trap
By Jeffrey Strain
Hundreds of thousands of people place their extra change into a jar or bank every night when they return home thinking that they are saving money. In reality, the dynamics of saving coins has changed over the last 10 years so that by placing your extra coins in a jar, you may actually be losing money. This is the new money jar trap.
The money jar has been a classic way for people to save money for generations. The concept was easy. After coming home for the day, you simply empty out your pockets and put the coins into a jar. When the jar was full, you take it to your local bank, have the coins counted and place the money into your savings account. While this sounds simple enough, the savings generated in the coin jar may not be worth their face value depending on how you redeem the coins.
The problem with the money jar game is that banks and other enterprises have figured out that they can charge you for taking your change. If there is a way to make a buck, you can be sure that banks and others will try to take it.
Take the convenience of changing your coins at a grocery store. CoinStar and other businesses will take your change and give you a receipt that you can use for your grocery shopping, but they'll also take a huge fee to do so. In effect, you are trading the face value of your coins for something worth less than face value.
More and more banks are also beginning to charge you to count coins if they will accept them at all. With the current rates that banks are paying on savings accounts, you'll likely have to leave the money your received for your coins in the bank several years just to break even with what you initially had.
What this all comes down to is that for many, keeping a coin jar is the same as losing money. Where it once was a great way to add to your savings, it has become as wasteful as keeping a balance on your credit cards. We have come to a time where the coin jar can actually cost you more money than you save.
There are a few steps that
you can take to make sure that you aren't actually losing money when you think you are saving it. First, you want to make sure never to have your coins changed at a grocery or similar store. By doing so, you will automatically have around 10% of your money subtracted for fees.
Before you take your coins to your bank, make sure they don't charge any fees for taking the money. The policy for banks varies widely. Some will charge for loose coins, but won't charge if you roll the coins yourself. Find out what charges exist and if any do, consider switching banks. Credit unions are usually better at not charging fees for taking coins than banks.
If you can't find a bank that will take coins without charging you, then use the coins in your everyday use. You're much better off doing this that letting them sit in a jar where they will ultimately lose money for you. You can amend the money jar game to benefit your savings if this is the case.
Instead of saving coins, move up to $1 bills for your money jar. In this scenario, you'll be doing exactly what you have been doing, but you'll be saving $1 bills instead of change. You don't spend any $1 bills you receive, but any coins you receive are fine to use. That means all purchases have to be made with coins or large bills ($5, $10, or $20 dollar bills). At the end of the day, you place all your $1 bills into your savings jar. Since banks will not charge you anything to deposit $1 bills, you avoid the fees your would get for the change and save even more money than with coins.
If you think that changing the game will keep you from saving, another way to change the coins is to take them to your local post office and use them to buy stamps out of the vending machines there. By switching the coins for stamps, you get 100% value for your coins which is better than paying fees to have the coins switched to bills.
In the end it's important to remember that coins are legal currency and you can get full face value for them by spending them a little at a time. While a large amount of coins can be troublesome, there is no reason to pay a fee to have the coins deposited.
About the author:
Copyright (c) Jeffrey Strain. He is owner of http://www.savemoneygames.com- a website dedicated to decreasing debt through money saving games.
How Can I Make Money Currency Trading?
Basically you can make money from trading money. If you have US dollars you can buy British pounds for a set rate and they trade the money back in the future at a different rate. This can make your gains immense. Much larger than gains made on...
Learn Forex Trading - a guide for beginners
One can learn forex trading as easily as one would like to learn other subjects or train in other professions. The criteria for learning forex trading is an analytical / logical bent of mind and some number crunching abilities. Reading...
Three Reasons to Start Derivatives Trading
If you are looking for a trading option outside of traditional stocks and bonds, derivatives trading may be a good option. Derivatives pay off over a period of time based on the performance of assets, interest rates, exchange rates, or indices. The...
Why is it more profitable for an Indian to take up Work At Home Business?
I am writing this article to help all fellow Indians
understand the fundas of working at home. How can you work
at home and make money online? And how do you, as an Indian
resident advantage more from it. You must ofcourse have guessed
it by...
Your Guide To Successful Forex Trading
If you were wondering; forex trading is nothing more than direct access trading of different types of foreign currencies. In the past, foreign exchange trading was mostly limited to large banks and institutional traders however; recent technological...
Risk Disclosure: Trading foreign exchange on margin carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. The high degree of leverage can work against you as well as for you. Before deciding to invest / trade in foreign exchange you should carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite. The possibility exists that you could sustain a loss of some or all of your initial investment and therefore you should not invest money that you cannot afford to lose. You should be aware of all the risks associated with foreign exchange trading.
** The Views and opinions represented in the provided website links and resources are not controlled by the Referring Broker or the FCM. Further, the Referring Broker and the FCM are not responsible for their availability, content, or delivery of services.
