Banking on Books
Reading
Reward
I found this challenge on the “Let’s Read” blog at http://momobookblog.blogspot.com
On her wonderful book blog Marianne posted the following
challenge in English, which she discovered and translated from a German
blogger.
For every book you read, put $2.00 (or whatever you
deem affordable) in a piggy bank, envelope, jar, etc. Don’t touch the money until the following fiscal
year and you will have some money to splurge on something fun. -- Probably not on books since that’s not a
splurge, it’s a necessity, in my opinion. :)
Marianne reads A LOT. Last year she read 72 books and
saved $144.00 Euros! I would have saved
about half that, but that’s fine with me.
This challenge is similar what I did to try and bribe
my kids to read when they were small: for every two books they read, they
either got a treat at Dairy Queen or $5.00, their choice. I’m sorry to say, I didn’t have to shell out
that much money. My kids, for the most
part, are not readers. Unfortunately, I
can’t choose their hobbies (not anymore since they’re all grown), but I still
have this little hope burning in me that my (and my sisters’ and mother’s)
enthusiasm for the books we discuss will ignite some kind of desire to pick up
a book and find the genre that will inspire them to keep picking up more books.
Special
Savings
Another savings challenge a friend told me about is a
weekly challenge. Each week, she puts money in a jar corresponding with the week
number. So, at the end of week one of the
year, she puts $1.00 aside, week two she puts $2.00 aside, etc. At the end of the year she had saved $1,378! That’s a hefty chunk of change!
My friend uses this
method for vacation savings, but you could make it special savings for anything
you want, maybe a Christmas fund, college fund for your kids, car fund,
whatever. If you stick to it, this may
be the only fool-proof pyramid scheme truly working in your favor.
While this seems to work
great for my friend, I can see that this may be a tad too rich for my
blood. Maybe I’ll tailor it to something
more my speed, like ten dollar increments per month. For example, in January I will set $10.00 aside,
February $20.00, March $30.00, etc. By the end
of the calendar year I will have $780.00. Since it’s
already April I’ll have some catching up to do, but I’m going to give it a
whirl along with the book savings challenge. Next year I might start the monthly savings in reverse. I’ll start with $120.00 in January, $110.00 in February and keep decreasing by $10.00 so come December I’ll
have to put less aside instead of more.
Happy reading, happy
saving!Annette
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