The Money Jar.

The year was 2011, and I and my young son were living in income-based housing in a somewhat rough part of town. I was barely supporting us through odd job and online gigs. I was fortunate enough to qualify to not have to pay rent on our apartment but I still had the rest of the bills to pay, including a ridiculous propane bill in the winter. Before anyone scoffs at this, let me tell you this is not fun, it's not easy, it downright blows. Living in income-based housing is two steps away from being homeless, and there is a stigma that comes with that, which is very hard to overcome.

At one point, I was chatting with a friend about finding a better place to move, they lived out of state, and where they lived housing was decent, even affordable to someone in my position. But how save money for a move, when you are already struggling? A brilliant idea came to mind right about then, when one of my family mentioned how they had saved pennies in a jar to make ends meet, and how they had used that money to pay off bills. I was skeptical, but figured hey why not, a penny saved is a penny earned right?

During this point in time, I was babysitting for the neighborhood families, making $50.00 a family per week. Some weeks it was just $50, and some weeks I got almost $200. I went into the kitchen and got down a Mason jar from the cabinet and started scrounging for change. I started with a couple of bucks worth of small change. I set a rule for this little jar, that for every $10.00 that I broke the extra change would go in the jar, no matter how tight I was, that money jar would not be touched. I continued babysitting, kept my bills paid, and for every $10 I spent, the extra change went to the jar. To add to my little rule, I started buying el cheapo products like $1.00 shampoo and uber-cheap cleaning products and etc. This added to my savings substantially. All I did for six straight months was pay bills, and buy the cheapest necessities possible. Yes, it hurt, yes, it was somewhat depressing at times, but I had a goal in mind and when I set my sights on something very little will dissuade me from it.

In January of 2012, after months of saving like a miser, I got down this jar and the extra jar that I had to make to store the change. After careful consideration of my circumstances, I decided to use the money for bills, as was originally suggested. while I wanted to move, it was going to be harder than I planned to pull it off by myself. The grand total of all this nitpicky saving and scraping by on near nothing? $865.00. I used that money to pay off a $500.00 credit card balance and kept the rest to start another jar with. It was a hard lesson in what you can achieve when you have "nothing" to go on and what a little hard work can get you. I still keep a money jar, not because I absolutely need it, it is more like a reminder of where I was at one point. One year, I used the money out of the jar to pay for the kids' Christmas. I've told others about my idea, and some have looked at me like I was crazy, and some have started their own money jars, and have come back to tell me what a good idea it was. Maybe you should start your own jar, and nevermind the modern convenience of banking nowadays, do something more humbling and meaningful, and start breaking those 10's!