Get yourself a 'Mortgage Pig'

mdeebee

I put my money in a Tom and Jerry money box. I put £2.00 coins, 50p and 20p pieces in. I have £180.00 waiting to be dropped in at the bank, and another £20.00 in collection mark II.

I don't miss the money I feed the money box with, and it's nice to be able to pay for something around the house without having to dip into the current account.

The £180.00 is going to buy some red shale for my garden-less garden/

I also save copper coins and 5ps. I cash them in once a year. I had £40.00 just before Christmas.

aliasojo

halloweenqueen: My mortgage is one where you can pay in anything at any time, so I tend to just pay the pig money into the bank whenever tbh. The least I have sent off to my mortgage is £10 and the most is £150 at any one time, depending on how well Herman has been fed, lol. My statements are usually sent out a month behind so I have an excel sheet I keep track of what I've paid and when ....... and of course the total still owed out. It's brilliant to see the figure getting smaller. I just didn't have the quite the same interest in the days before Herman.

teb: welcome to the site. I'm pleased you posted and I hope this idea might help you out too.

mjh: looks like your Gorilla has got it sussed, lol. He speaks a lot of sense.

Mushypeas: thank you for nominating me. I'm honoured and embarrassed all at once.

Fibabe

Just to let you all know, look in your local Clinton cards as they had reduced a load of china pigs with names on the side from £6.99 to 99p.

That extra £6.00 can go inside the pig!

mjh1977

Aliasojo

Unless you'er a ceramic pig manufacturer, you've started something amazing. THANK YOU. Something simple we'd not thought of is so powerful.

M

Gingham_Ribbon

I've nominated Aliasojo's post for post of the month too. And I'm going to make this thread a sticky too so more people can see it.

*zippy*

Alot of bidding on piggy banks on ebay tonight Think you've started something aliasojo

aliasojo

Thanks you to everyone for their kind words (and for the nominations). Sitting here with a stupid grin.

I would have posted about this ages ago but I kinda thought everyone might just have pooh-poohed the idea, lol.

Incidentally, I have actually discussed this with a psychologist friend (just after 1st friend spent so much time laughing at me! ) and he too reckoned it worked because it was a lot less impersonal than just ordinary saving and something to actually 'interact with', if you like, which gave the savings process more of an emotional tie.

When you're trying to save or pay off debt of any sort, your brain obviously knows what it needs to do but very often your heart just isn't in it which causes conflict when your brain tells you not to waste money and your emotions are saying 'but I want it'.

Involving your emotions, through personalisation / visualisation, and re-inforcement (by the speech bubble statement) gets them onside and makes you want to achieve your goal more because the process is now not so much of a drudge and you have a constant positive reminder of why you wanted to do this in the first place.

Not sure if I've explained all that well.

It does work though.

halloweenqueen_2

Thanks for letting me know about paying it in. I also have a mortgage where I can pay more off at any time with no limit on overpaying so after breaking open the jar I had a pleasant surprise as there was more than the £40 in it I thought! I'm also going to put some things in an auction and that will be overpayment money as well - if the items sell.
Really give me a boost to lessen my mortgage - just seeing how much the overpayment of £9.05 a month is taking off has really inspired me.
Great post - thanks!

halloweenqueen_2

By the way, I have done my little poster pointing out what the little overpayment is saving both in time and money and also what another £10 a month would save, made space for a record of the months overpayments.
Not that I'm banking on Mr HQ's competitive streak!!!

floridadreamin

Hi, what a fantastic idea. I shall be cruisin around looking for a suitable money box/pig/gorilla etc. Perhaps I can get the hubby to join in, at the moment he just chuckles whenever I say I managed to save £xx off the house insurance etc. Oh well at least one of us is trying to save money!!