Dismayed because our newly built and delicate basic emergency fund got hit again last month, my brilliant husband found us more than $760 that helped us get back on track.
As you may know, we have started taking the Dave Ramsey Financial Freedom course. One of the first steps that he recommends is to fund the start of an emergency fund. This way, you don’t have to worry about getting into debt if an emergency should occur.
The problem was, is that as soon as we funded this, it got hit for the whole amount, leaving us back to square one. So, how could we get it back up quickly?
My husband suggested that we gather up all of our change. I had a little stash in the hall secretary that I used to pay the kids in quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies when they did extra little jobs around the house. I didn’t think it would be worth it to start rolling all of this change up. But then my husband reminded me of the other stash. He had been in the habit of dumping his extra change into baby wipe containers whenever he emptied his pockets. It was money that we forget that we even had.
He went to fetch them and I was stunned. There were five full containers of change.
Our plan was to hit the bank and use their change sorting machine. I was really showing my age when I though we would have to roll all of the coins. Because we were a member of the bank, we could use the machine for free. In other words, we avoided the 15 percent surcharge that would have been taken out if we were not members or if we used the coin machines at our local grocery store.
So there we were. We made an event out of it one evening. We drive over to the bank. Our branch happens to be in a mall. This is significant when I tell you that we formed a little parade through the mall and into the bank. Each of the five of us carried one of the wipe containers (although the littlest one needed help) in a line. The poor clerk didn’t know what he was in for.
We made our way over to the machine and got to work as an assembly line, scooping out change, plucking out wheat pennies or dollar coins, and feeding the rest into the machine. if you have ever used one of those machines, they are pretty noisy. I think everyone in the mall knew what we were up to!
We only jammed the machine once with an Eisenhower dollar that slipped through. The clerk was so good natured and more amused than anything else.
Once our change was done, my husband took the printed receipt to the teller and boom, more than $760 went into our emergency fund! Now whenever my kids find even a penny somewhere, they are anxious to put it in to one of the now empty wipe containers.