‘Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves’
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Hiya. Do you agree with the phrase ‘Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves’? If not, why? And if you do, how does that influence how you manage your finances/save money? For example, some people take part in moneysaving challenges, eg £1 challenge or the 52 weeks challenge or have unconventional ways of saving - eg saving all £2 coins or £5 notes. Do you do any of these or have your own unconventional ways of savings?
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My 92y/o grandmother uses that phrase. Worked for her TBH.0
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..complete cobblers IMHO. Probably correct thinking a few decades ago when "pennies" may have been worth something and most people did not see many "notes", but not really applicable now.
We put all our "pennies" into a charity box, and some silver as well.
Best to just "look after your money"...full stop..."It's everybody's fault but mine...."0 -
..complete cobblers IMHO. Probably correct thinking a few decades ago when "pennies" may have been worth something and most people did not see many "notes", but not really applicable now.
We put all our "pennies" into a charity box, and some silver as well.
Best to just "look after your money"...full stop.
The basic principles are right I think, maybe for 2018 it needs updated to "look after the pounds and the hundreds look after themselves" and "look after the hundreds and the thousands look after themselves" too
:) 0 -
Penny wise, pound foolish0
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I still think it's correct, in the sense that if you look after the small amounts you don't need to worry about the large amounts (up to a point). I multiply by 10 - for example, a coffee and a sticky bun might cost £5, which might not seem much. But if you buy them every day (Monday to Friday) for 2 weeks, that's 10 times, which is £50. Which is a lot to spend on coffee and cake in a fortnight!
But I also agree with the phrase 'penny wise and pound foolish' - meaning someone who watches every penny, but fails to see the bigger picture (for example that buying the cheapest might not be the best value in the long term).No longer a spouse, or trailing, but MSE won't allow me to change my username...0 -
I agree with the principle of watching every penny/pound you spend and seeing your savings mount up. I just take the view I don't like throwing money away and tend to think about purchases before making them to make sure I am getting good value.I’m a Forum Ambassador and I support the Forum Team on the Debt free Wannabe, Budgeting and Banking and Savings and Investment boards. If you need any help on these boards, do let me know. Please note that Ambassadors are not moderators. Any posts you spot in breach of the Forum Rules should be reported via the report button, or by emailing forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com. All views are my own and not the official line of MoneySavingExpert.0
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I think focusing on looking after money regardless of value reinforces good discipline. However I am not a fan of saving spare change or rounding up transactions as its a bit random and you should really make decisions on how much to save.
One of my friends had a time saving policy of scanning his bank statements and only looking at high value transactions and then recently discovered he was still paying direct debits for a house he sold 10 years ago!
Alex0 -
To me, "looking after the pennies" means trying to minimise all the small and medium-size expenditures that happen in most months, and I think I'm quite good at that.
On the other hand, that doesn't really seem to prepare me for dealing responsibly with occasional much larger purchases such as buying a house or new car. A bad decision in those cases can wipe out years of good decisions about "pennies".0 -
I agree with that old saying, think it's accurate and think it speaks volumes.
The bottom line is, if you fritter away your hard earned money on those small purchases then it will indeed eat into your pounds.
Classic example - buying a cup of coffee to drink on-the-go.
Why do it ?
You have had the opportunity to have a drink in the place you last were at, and you will be able to have one in the place you're going onto.
Okay, it might not be fancy, it might not even be coffee, but given that you've already paid for the coffee, milk, and sugar, in your weekly shop why buy it all over again at a high price you are now several pounds down on your daily/weekly spend and do this more than once a day and you now don't have that bit extra put aside that day/week.
No doubt about it, those small purchases affect the larger picture.0 -
Yes, sometimes spending money can be an investment, like buying a newer car so that is is more reliable and costs less to repair over the long term. I have a friend with a £2000 laptop with the most crappy slow broadband because he is too tight to spend an extra fiver a month to go fibre. The laptop is effectively as slow as a 500 quid laptop because of the slow internet connection. He spends over a fiver a day on take away coffee to! Each to their own.Penny wise, pound foolish
I think good insurance is money well spent but I'm fairly risk-averse.
Eating out is definately expensive, one meal for the price of a weely shop at Lidl!
In the early days of MSE people were discusing whether to reduce hoovering to save electricity! That is too thrifty even for me!0
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