Making Your Packrat Gene Work For You
Fourteen cigar boxes full of the loose change I’d taken out of my pockets every night as I undressed for bed for the past fifteen years, came to just under three-thousand dollars the other day. You should have seen the looks I got from the folks waiting for a teller in my bank as I wheeled all those cigar boxes in.
My bank, let it be said, was very cool about it. I asked ahead of time, and they didn’t demand I wrap up all those coins, and they didn’t charge me for counting them. The branch customer service manager cheerfully took the cart I’d loaded with all those cigar boxes around behind the teller windows to the coin counting machine and then gave me a deposit slip afterward with the yield amount on it. She was all smiles, and so was the young teller who ran it all through the machine. I guess I made their day.
Of course the drawback to all of this is that if I’d bought savings bonds with that money it would have been earning interest all this time. I have a little wooden box on my dresser that resembles an old pirate treasure chest and that’s where I toss my loose change at the end of my day. Whenever it filled up I’d transfer some of it to a cigar box and put it away. I think from now on I’ll go buy a savings bond with it instead.
January 21st, 2008 at 4:02 am
“if I’d bought savings bonds with that money it would have been earning interest all this time”
…and if I’d put my £1K ($2K) savings into shares in Northern Rock back in September/October last year, then sold them in mid-December, I’d have almost half the £5K ($10K) deposit I need to buy my flat. Retrospect is a bitch.
Still, I shouldn’t complain – the market here won’t bottom out for a few more years, which is plenty of time to save up.
January 21st, 2008 at 6:43 am
…and if I’d put my £1K ($2K) savings into shares in Northern Rock back in September/October last year, then sold them in mid-December, I’d have almost half the £5K ($10K) deposit I need to buy my flat. Retrospect is a bitch.
Heh…not just retrospect I’d say. Looks like if I’d put the money into Euros I’d have doubled it. Dang! Republican economic policy is a bitch too…
Good luck with buying a flat. Don’t they have programs for first time buyers over there? Or isn’t this your first one? If it wasn’t for the first time homeowners programs over here, I’d still be renting. They reduced my down payment significantly.
January 21st, 2008 at 5:01 pm
We don’t have first-time home-owner programs here, but there are others like specially-built housing for people like teachers, nurses or the police, where the price is artificially lower than the market rate. Unfortunately despite working for the government, my grade isn’t high enough for me to qualify.