Not too long ago my husband and I made up a shopping list of things we needed. We only had $17 to spend and it looked like the items on our list would total that amount. My five year old asked if we could get some ice cream while we were out. It was a super hot day and ice cream sounded sooooo good. But, "Sorry, buddy. We might not have enough money for ice-cream," my husband said patiently. My son replied, "But you have lots of money! It's all over the place!" And he proceeded to point out our change jar, the pile of change in my husband's nightstand, the bulging coin pocket in my wallet, and then he reminded us of all the coins on the floor of our car.He was right. We had lots of forgotten money! We each took a handfull of coins with us to Fred Meyer and when we were ready to pay we used the U-Scan. Our total was $17.82. If our son had not reminded us of all our forgotten change I might have thought to scrounge around in the bottom of my purse for 82 cents. I probably would have chosen to put one item back. Instead, we started plugging all our change into the U-Scan machine and watching our total go down, down, down.
At the end we only needed to pay $11.81. We still had a five dollar bill! Plenty of money for a carton of ice cream. It was a happy day indeed!
Now we try to use the U-Scan as much as possible so that we can play "The Change Game." (We could use the regular line but it seems rude to ask a real person to count all our change and to hold up the line for other customers.) It's amazing how much our dollars can stretch when we actually use all of them!
So where's your forgotten money? Do you have any tips on getting the most of out your change?
Kids see things adult misses all the time. The simplicity of looking around for things that we miss as an adult. They are very smart and can be extremely versatile. My daughter, 7 always brighten my day by pointing things out that I never thought of. Clever little things they are.
ReplyDeleteUm...while I applaud your use of change and other blog posts for saving money, and reduced consumerism - Please consider when going through a "U Scan" 1. You are providing that store with free payroll. So long as you're going through the checkout line that requires a cashier and bagger - those 2 people have a job and are therefore are better able to sustain their own families.
ReplyDeleteall of our pocket change and what we find when we clean out the cars, goes into a crayon bank that when full we go to the bank and deposit it into our childrens savings account. Which will hopefully pay for a first car and help out with college tuition. Each trip to the bank, usually 2 to 3 times a year, gets at least $100.
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