Being someone who has worked in the finance industry and someone who is always trying to come up with new and innovative ways to save, I try to pass this knowledge to my two sons whenever I can. For me, it’s more about getting them to relate to an idea about savings rather than jamming the fact that they should save down their throats. One of my most successful savings strategies for them has been one we’ve dubbed the Fantastic Four Theory and it has become a strategy that I have also implemented personally and saved over $1,400 in just one year by doing so.
Fantastic Four Theory
My kids are huge fans of super hero movies and one of their favorites is the Fantastic Four. So, I applied a strategy to the name in order to make it more appealing. Basically, the Fantastic Four Theory is that if they each put two quarters, which is then matched by me and my wife, into a jar then after one year’s time they will have $364. That will be money they can then spend on anything they want.
One Step Further
After just a few months of this I really saw just how well it was working. It seemed that no matter what, my kids were coming up with their two quarters every day which meant we had to match it. Once their savings breached the $100 mark I began to think of a way I could take the Fantastic Four Theory a step further for myself to increase my own savings.
I thought about all kinds of numbers and how much more that would mean for my savings, but I settled on something rather low. I decided to dedicate four dollars per day to my own savings jar. Even though my business was a bit slow at the time I decided to implement the strategy. I was positive I could spare four bucks a day and while four dollars didn’t seem like much I knew the end result would be great.
$1,456 in One Year and Looking for More
The Fantastic Four Theory has not only seen my kids’ savings increase, but my own as well. In just one year after faithfully saving four dollars a day I had an extra $1,456 saved up. Of course, I put the money into a special savings account as the jar filled up, but the end result was a nice little chunk of savings.
This is something that can be replicated again and again by anyone and with just a little motivation and patience the savings really do add up. Since my first successful year using the Fantastic Four Theory I have increased my daily savings number to five dollars, which is four one dollar bills and four quarters. This keeps the four in Fantastic Four and will make my next full year of savings $1,820.
More from this contributor:
Three Surprising Savings Totaling $1,500 All for Getting in Shape
First Person: The ‘Snowflake Method’ Is Accelerating Our Debt Payoff By $1,000 Per Year
First Person: I Paid Off $11,000 Worth of Student Loan Debt in One Year
