Picking up money and coins from the ground, squeeze the pennies till the Queen (or abe lincoln) crys for mercy!

Whew... Ok this is going to be a controversial topic for many of my readers, so I will do my best to rationalise it, though before we go any further I am well aware that this will not be everyone's cup of tea, but I just had to blog about it!

I pick up coins and money from the ground (and vending machine coin slots too) and I save them in a jar. There. I said it. Let the judging commence!

I do have some rules about it though,
1-If I find any paper money I would instantly report it to whichever shop or shopping mall I was in. Or the police If I found it outwith these places.
2- If the money is near a charity collection tin or homeless person I would either ignore it, or give it to them.

The biggest find I have ever had was £10, and it was at my work, I spoke to the main receptionist who said to hang onto it till the end of the day and if she didnt have anyone claim it then it was mine. Which I did :) Mostly though I find pennies and small denomination coins, sometimes even foreign coins :) I have a special tin for my foreign coins so that if I ever visit that place then I have some loose change :)

I sometimes check vending machine coin return slots too, there is one particular vending machine which basically always has money left in the coin return slot, anything between ten pence and thirty pence usually!

Picking up coins from the ground when Im out shopping or walking helps with my budget, in all honesty its a bit of a game to me, I like the idea that I can go out for a walk and potentially return slightly richer! Im sure that some of you reading this may think this is silly, or at worst that I am scum for doing it. But here are my reasons:

1- Its fun to pick up coins, adding them to your coin jar makes you reach your goals a little quicker, and if you are the kind of person who saves small amounts on items you buy using coupons or vouchers, then why not pick up some loose change?

2- It makes an ordinary walk a little more exciting, you get a little thrill when you find a coin

3- On our high streets in Britain there are a lot of coins dropped on the ground and their "Owners" havent bothered to pick them up, this is a RECESSION, losing coins by letting them go down drains is effectively taking money out of circulation, which is bad for the economy. I dont know about you, but I would like to see a return to the days when you could walk out of your job on a friday and start a new one on the monday!

4- This point is sort of adding to my previous point, but I personally see the value in small coins, whereas other people seem to throw them on the street for being small denomination. 100 pennies makes a pound, 50 two pences make a pound, ten ten pences make a pound etc, no wonder this country is in so much debt! Noone appreciates the value of money anymore!

I would be interested to hear your thoughts folks, do you pick up coins? Or if not, why not?

Do you pick up coins or money on the ground?

Ok, this is going to be a "marmite" post, you are either going to love the idea of this, or HATE it, its that derisive a topic, here goes!
Almost every day I find money of some sort on my daily travels, I don't even do it on purpose anymore! But my eyes just seem to find the coins (And in some very rare cases notes!) wherever they are on the pavements/ground etc. I once found a ten pound note as well in a business in Ayr, I reported that I had it, they took my details and said that If noone claimed it by the end of the day then I could keep it! Any more than that though and I would hand it in to the police. Everyone has a different level of tolerance for finding money, from a moral standpoint. To be honest most people don't pick up coins or money from the street anyways, they think its "dirty". Which is 100% TRUE. But only because the money in current circulation has been handled so many times, by so many different people, and kept in hiding places by many different people, so its as dirty as the rest of the money in circulation by my way of thinking. So far THIS YEAR I have found somewhere in the region of £25, in these hard financial times, thats got to be a welcome bonus in 4 months!! Simply from picking up coins in the streets!

So my question to you budgetlifers, is do you pick up coins/notes from the ground/streets/sidewalks? And what is the reason for yes or no answer?? Looking forward to hearing from you budgetlifers!

My next post will be about ways to make money on the side, (not from your day job)

Your budget or your life 1

Welcome to your budget or your life! In this blog I am going to be posting about how to make and maintain a budget, and also helpful guides and tips on:

*saving for a deposit for a mortgage/car/anything
*pitfalls in finance
*how to build up your credit score
*information on different types of bank accounts
*paid surveys

and much more to come over the life of this blog!

First of all here is a link to a standard budget in ODF format (sorry I dont have excel, but you can convert easily or use open office which is free like I do if your excel wont open it)

http://www.2shared.com/file/pmX-Tn0A/BUDGET_TEMPLATE.html

In this template on the far left hand side you have some examples of expenses you could have. Change any of these to anything that suits your own personal circumstances. Enter the totals into the second column. I work my budget monthly, but you can do it weekly to the same effect, and when you save your spreadsheet file always save the week or the month as the file name. E

The third column is for your incomes, enter as many as you wish here (for example if you have two or more jobs, or sell on ebay/gumtree etc)

The fourth column is for your isa total, If you dont have one (yet) obviously leave it blank, but I will cover ISAs more in the upcoming blogs.

The fifth column is for Savings Jar 1, this could be where you save a certain denomination of coin (such as pound coins or dollars if you are american)

The sixth column is for savings Jar 2, this could be where you save just any denomination of coin or notes.

The seventh column is for your wallet or purse, the money you carry on your person

the eight column is for the emergency fund, this is REALLY important. I would say try to get about £200 or $300 dollars saved here for emergencys, AND ONLY USE IT IN EMERGENCYS. I will speak about this more in the future as its pretty important.

Once you have entered values in all these columns the totals and totals left over (or negative) will display in the lower cells. This tells you how you are actually doing financially and theres no guesswork or "rounding up" involved. I HATE ROUNDING UP. This is for the fact that people seem to think that to budget you should round up values. I think being honest with yourself financially is the very best way to start. 

Ok, so you have your totals and you are seeing (perhaps for the first time) exactly where your money is going and how much you REALLY have. Now you try to get a better deal on every bill you possibly can.

Insurances
http://www.comparethemarket.com/
http://www.gocompare.com/

Energy and broadband
http://www.moneysupermarket.com/

line rental
http://www.primussaver.co.uk/

Make cut backs, BE HONEST, and be brutal if you have to, this is your financial future we are talking about here and noone can do the legwork for you unfortunetly. Here are my 10 golden tips:

1- Cut back on buying branded goods (heinz, walkers etc) and try the supermarket or budget version, buying the aldi version usually cuts back about 60% of spending, and the stuff they sell is actually great quality

2- Walk places where you can rather than taking the car or public transport you will get fitter and  walking makes you feel good by releasing endorphins in your brain.

3- Turn off lights when you leave a room, there should only be one lightbulb on in your house when its dark, and thats for the room that you are in.

4- Dont buy DVDs, take out a free trial for lovefilm and then cancel it before the 30 day limit is up

5- Watch films online, there are actually a lot of films on youtube now, such as rocky 2

6- Dont let food you buy go to waste or out of date, make meal plans and use all the food before it goes out of date, make a soup, all you need to make soup is a stock cube and any selection of diced vegetables and meats. You can freeze it too and eat it later.

7- If you have a job can you do overtime? Its a good way to make money and get in your managers good books!

8- Can you sell anything that you dont ever use? Many people on ebay or gumtree will pay good money for that playstation you have had sitting for years

9- If you have a television subscription cancel it, freeview is really good now! Its like sky without all the crap shows

10- If you make videos on youtube, see if you are eligable to monetize your videos, its a great way to make money!

More next time on Your budget or your life, I will be blogging weekly every saturday.


If there are any questions or comments, please post here or email me on onemanmade@hotmail.co.uk