- 34 Dollar Saturday
- The "One Percent" Jar
I have been trying to get regular sleep, lately, but today I am taking a break from it; taking a rest from sleeping, you might say. I'm going shopping, hopped up on coffee, instead.
The "one percent" jar is only current for the past week, having been wiped out before then.
It is easy to keep the jar up to date as one dollar equals one penny. I dropped 34 cents into the thing this morning.
The jar, at one point was up over 10 dollars, indicating that I had lived off of a thousand bucks that I had made, and been able, out of it to drop a penny for every dollar into the jar (which is actually a very tall plastic drink holder from one of the bars on Bourbon Street that has a bowl at the bottom, and a 3 foot neck which flares a bit like a horn at the very top. It makes a good one percent jar.
It should, in theory, be possible to go through ones entire life, dropping one percent off the top of one's earnings into a jar and never missing it.*
*And possibly not needing it -I have seen that, at most convenience stores, if I am short one percent of my purchase, the one percent will be forgiven, for example, my Arizona Energy drink rings up at $1.08.
If I have put a dollar on the counter, and have fished a nickel out of my pocket, but am still fishing around for the three cents in my pocket, the cashier is about 90% likely to say "don't worry about the pennies."
So, I would have saved almost 2 % off my purchase.
If I could regularly prearrange my change so that I am in the position of (making a show of) fishing for the last few cents, I figure that I could save an average of 5% off of all my purchases.
This would offset the sales tax, and is significant to a guy who has a 1% jar waiting to take from his earnings. Getting 5% off my purchases would be like robbing Peter AND Paul.
The drawback would be that I would have to purchase things individually, which would be a pain in the ass. But, in theory at least; I have discovered a way to save money.
Pulling keys, a pack of gum, etc. out of the pocket that you are searching for the coppers in is a suggestion.
And, if you were to do it at the same store, eventually the staff would come to know you as the guy who fishes for the pennies, and they may ask you to stop doing it.
After a Saturday that netted 34 bucks, it is Sunday and I need to go and get
- batteries for my little radio so I can keep up on Donald Trump and sports
- dirt for my thriving plant community
- peanut butter
- water
- cat food
- the laundry done
- newspaper
- instant coffee
- honey
So you can't save a mere 1% on your own, and your plan for saving is gypping store owners. Nice.
ReplyDeleteThe penny has become, at least here in NOLA, something of a nuisance. I have found about 20 dollars worth of them on the ground. For a while, I had been finding one dime per day laying somewhere...
ReplyDeleteI was being kind of facetious about pinching pennies, but, a one-percent jar is almost impossible to maintain when income equals expenditures.
For example, a person who makes only $5,000 per year is probably frequently broke, because his basic expenditures deplete it all. But, if he had started a one percent jar a year earlier, then he would be frequently broke, unable to even buy cigarettes, yet would have 50+ dollars sitting in his "one percent" jar.
Contrast that with the guy who makes 50K per year. After he spends the same $5,000 per year on basic expenditures (assuming that both of them buy the same groceries, wear the same clothes, etc) he has $45,000 per year left over, and can easily throw one percent in the jar, and will not be tempted by the 500 dollars that is sitting in his jar at the end of the same year.
I guess my point is that maintaining the jar requires "getting ahead" at least one percent, perpetually.
When I was living under the wharf, I had a 4% jar, and it had reached around $50 at one point, indicating that I had made around $1,250 in the month and a half that I was feeding the jar, but, sooner or later some large expense is going to come along and wipe it out. It becomes necessary to save for a rainy day in a depository which is entirely separate from the "%" jar
Another way of looking at the 1% jar is; after 100 days, it will contain an average day's pay...
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