Check out this gem I just picked up at an antiques store!!
A “Thrifty Savers Book” – with slots for adding 30 dimes into!
And super clever marketing to boot, haha…
When you fill this Dime Saver, visit the FIRST FEDERAL SAVINGS and open your account — put those savings to work for a safe profit!
Imagine the days when $3.00 was a lot of money? :)
Actually, I’ll tell you – it was back in the 1950’s/early 60’s (the $10,000 FDIC part gave it away), and running it through a handy dandy inflation calculator tells us that $0.10 back then had the buying power of roughly $1.04 today.
So really, it’s “Save a dollar, become a baller!” haha… And comes out to about $30 to open up your first account, which is more typical to today’s times.
I had fun coming up with a bunch of other slogans though before I knew the updated value… Feel free to steal these if any banks are watching right now ;)
- Save your nickels, stay out of pickles!
- Save your quarters, become $$ hoarders!
- Save your halves, avoid being sads!
- Save your fives, enjoy living before you dies!
- And the ultimate crowd pleaser… Save your twenties, get lots of honeys! ;)
If only banks cared for our well being as they at least pretended to back then – womp womp…
Fortunately though, you don’t need savings booklets to get going these days – automation has taken over and allowed any of us to save, save, save without lifting a finger, finger, finger! It’s a beautiful thing!
And almost anyone can spare an extra $30/mo too. So if you’re not hip to the game yet, I challenge you to create your first auto. transfer for exactly that – $30. After a year you’ll have $360 without accounting for interest/compounding, after five you’ll have $1,800, and after ten you’ll have $3,600! Or divert it to investments and you have a good shot at doubling it – without noticing a blip in your lifestyle! And really isn’t that what we all wish for?? Not hating our lives while we’re being financially “responsible”??
Saving really can be as easy as plopping dimes into a booklet or just setting it and forgetting it. A lot of things change over the years, but the basic principles of finance do not! Spend less than you earn and bank the difference – that’s really it in a nutshell.
If you don’t believe me, check out this book on “thrift” circa 1875:
(Free on Kindle or at Gutenberg.org. // Blog post on it here.)
Stash those dimes, enjoy better times indeed!
It’s not that complicated!
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For further reading on years gone by:
- 46 Tips To Save You Time, Money, and Trouble – From The 1950’s! (blog post)
- “Tonight I decided to see what wisdom lay in my set of 1939 Readers Digests” (twitter strand)
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Recently, I opened a savings account at a local credit union. I was trying to take advantage of the $250 bonus. But the mailman delivered the visa card to my next-door neighbor’s house who was on vacation. As a result, I missed the required # of transactions. Ugh! Not only did I not get the bonus, I also discovered that they’ve been charging $2 per month for sending paper statements. When banks send those promotional items, it’s usually a trap.
Ouch!
I don’t even mess with new sing ups and bonuses and all that anymore. Too much hassle and messes up my “all accounts under one roof” idea for pure joy and simplicity :)
This is definitely a rare find. I even thought about how it might be worth a lot in the future hehe.
I used to have a piggy bank and a secret place to put money when I was little. But now that I’m older, I’m all about online transactions and automation. One thing I know is that I really don’t like touching dollar bills or coins since my dad used to tell me that they were full of germs and all that yucky stuff. I like having those bills and coins in my bank account though ;)
Haha yeah – they’re pretty disgusting :)
Have you ever seen these places to hide your $$$??
#7 is the best, haha…
https://budgetsaresexy.com/the-10-awesomest-safes-ive-ever-seen/
Love it! Sound advice is timeless :)
There are many banks out there that will give you free bonus money when you opened an account. I recently helped three people open three chequing accounts and deposit $100 and they received $50 each. What a quick way to make an easy 50% return. It pays to be a saver.
Lucky friends to have you around!
Some people make a hobby of bank account bonuses. I used to play that game. You can actually get a couple thousand dollars a year pretty easily. Problem is that bank account sign up bonuses are treated as interest so you have to pay taxes on them. Still, it can be rewarding and even kind of fun for an OCD budgeter to keep track of these bonuses. Doctor of Credit keeps a monthly updated list of the best bank account bonuses.
Every little bit helps…and spot on regarding the automation! So many great apps and tools available today to make it happen almost effortlessly.
Although one thing also helps…a big ass beer mug. We got one in New Orleans last year… I think it was a 2-pint beer mug that we bought; we’re now filling it up with physical spare change. We’ve got a while to go still, but I’m sure there is around +50 bucks already in that thing!
“Niiiice!” – in the voice of Borat
Very cool find. I remember squirreling away my loose change as a kid and being amazed when once every few years I’d deposit in the bank to see how large it had grown. Automation now does this all for me, but it was a cool experience back in the day as a kid.
I still do it here! Just cashed a jar in last week and had a solid $20 in it… I love/prefer using cash whenever I can :)
I like saving change but my daughter LOVES to rogue my wallet and remove all of it and put it in her piggy bank. I’m just thankful she hasn’t started taking my cash yet! Ha
…. then it’ll be your car keys, wine, etc ;)
Awesome techniques on saving money J :)
You know how to turn a dull subject into something exciting. What really stands out to me is how saving $30 per month can add up. A few months back I was excited about saving money and optimizing my finances, but lately I’ve just left everything in auto pilot.
Although most of my money is being budgeted automatically there’s still much to be learned about continuously focusing on saving with the little things. Time to start reviewing my finances, and calling the bank for my $300 they promised after signing up for a promotion.
Keep staying fresh ;)
Appreciate it, sir! Thanks for taking the time to chime in here!
The great thing about being 5 and adorable is that people give you their spare change. My mom, my husband, and I put all of our spare change in my son’s piggy bank (most of it is Grammy’s since we use debit cards and not much cash). Every summer, we roll it and bring it to the bank. EVERY YEAR my son deposits between $130 and $180! Don’t tell Grammy ;)
Excellent idea!!! I really like that!
I used to have a similar booklet for collecting all the different types of quarters – remember when each state had their own design on the reverse of the quarter? It was more of a collectors thing than a way to save up $12.50 in quarters.
YES! Of course – I’m an avid coin collector! :) In fact, those state programs was one of the biggest things to happen to our hobby in recent years! Exploded new interest in coins, and particularly the younger generations which we need to keep the hobby afloat!
I still have my quarter book….somewhere. I don’t think I managed to fill up the entire book though.
Might be worth emptying it and throwing into investments :)
What a piece of history! It’s as true now as it was back then: every little bit adds up! It’s interesting to see how they used the technology of the day to try to help them out.
I think we can do better than “Save your halves, avoid being sads”
How about: Save your 50s, they’re pretty nifty (works for dollars and cents) or Save your 50s, and play air guitar riff-ies
Surprised you didn’t go for the obvious: Save your twenties, and be like J$?
*Bows in approval*
I just opened an Acorns account last week where I would invest some spare change and see how much compounding I can get. Right now I’m putting in around $10 a month and I’ll see what that amounts to after year(hopefully around $150)!!
GOOD!! Big fans of them myself and used for a cple years as well. It’ll def. add up! (And you won’t even notice it being gone, either! :))
I can’t believe no one has mentioned how those passbook savings accounts would’ve paid 5.25 or 5.5% interest back then.
Nice!! I guess we’re not used to such high #’s these days – except for the debt side of the equation :(
For some reason, I used to collect quarters when I was growing up. It didn’t matter what kind they were or the year, just that they were quarters. I stored them in a teddy bear bank and I still have the bank full of quarters. When the bank filled up, I started storing them in another container. I probably have over $100 in quarters just sitting around in my house.
Nice!! You should see if any of them are dated 1963 or earlier – if so, they’re worth way more than $0.25 these days in silver alone! (Approximately $3.00 each as of today – http://www.coinflation.com/coins/1932-1964-Silver-Washington-Quarter-Value.html )
When I dig them all back up, I’ll have to sort through them and see if I can find any that old. Thanks for the tip!