Holidays are the highlight of most people’s year. You work hard and have that time marked in your calendar every year when you finally have the chance for a getaway. Yet so many people struggle to save the money they need to ensure that their holiday is a magical one. One of our readers wrote in with a fantastic idea that she uses to save money for a family holiday every year. Read on to find out.
While all soft drinks, coke included, are bad for your health, expensive and have no nutritional value at all we have finally found something good about them. One of our readers (thanks Sandra) wrote in with this simple idea that she calls ‘The Coke Trick’. All you need is a 600ml bottle of coke.
The game is simple. Step one: Every time you find a $2 coin you put it in your empty bottle of coke. Step two: Well there really is no step two. Step two I guess is to spend the money once you fill that bottle of coke. Now you may be asking why does it need to be a bottle of coke and why does it need to be 600ml and why does it need to be $2 coins. It doesn’t. Choose whatever value, bottle, and size you like. The great thing about the combination Sandra chose is that a full bottle adds up to around $1,000. This is the perfect amount for her and her partner to book a romantic getaway every year.
It is important that you choose a bottle size and coin value that is big enough to make it worth your while. Filling it with 1 cent coins may be easy but you won’t get very much return. Sandra says that the $2 approach is perfect because it became a mission for her and her husband to try and get them whenever they could. The best way to save is to have an incentive to change behavior without realizing it, and that is exactly what this did for them.
Sandra’s husband found that the coke trick caused her husband to start buying regular coffees instead of large, he wanted the $2 coin. Even if it doesn’t change your behavior that radically it will force you to put all those spare $2 coins in one place instead of spending them without realizing.
There are two great ways to save. One is to bring down the recurring expenses like bills and subscriptions, the other is to try and cut out the needless expenses that take place. The impulse purchases at the checkout, the extra scoop of ice cream that you don’t want or need. By using an incentive scheme like the coke trick it allows you to focus on saving those small coins without putting in a huge amount of effort.
There are many schemes like this and different ones will work for different people. Another great scheme that we love is to save a dollar for every week of the year. In the first week save $1, easy. In the last week of the year save $52, not impossible. In between keep adding $1 to the amount that you need to save. By the end of the year, you will have saved $1,378. These easy tricks may sound simple and they are but if you are doubting their success consider this simple fact. Did you end last year with $1,378 to spend on whatever you wanted? Probably not.
Instead of choosing the budget option for your next holiday start putting the steps in place today so that you can treat yourself and your family to the holiday you deserve.
