Last winter I was sitting outside at a friend’s house under a tent having drinks by the fire. Thats when I shared a tip I heard on the radio about saving money. Ok no more suspense. The trick is to save every 5 dollar bill you come across in your day-to-day life. Yep, that’s it. But you would be surprised how easy it is to be disciplined about saving $5 bills. These days with ATM machines dispensing mainly twenties or larger bills, its less likely that you will receive 5 dollar bills as change as you would say a $1 or $10 bill. And its this fact that makes collecting 5 dollar bills so much fun.

Four Steps to Building a 5 Dollar Bill Habit

By following these simple steps you may be surprised how much you save in matter of months.

STEP 1: Decide how long you want to collect the 5 dollar bills. Do you want to do it for six months or a year. And maybe you have no time frame in mind and just want to not set a date. Its your choice. Remember building good habits takes time.

STEP 2: Decide on a safe place to stash your loot. However, your collection location or container should be big enough to accommodate your stash. And the size of your receptacle for your bills should correlate with the length of period you decide in Step 1.

STEP 3. Think about  a potential use for the funds when your period of collection is over. Maybe you want to save it for a vacation, a new Louis Vuitton bag or that new Apple computer. This will help in the motivation aspect of building this habit.

STEP 4. Finally, tell everyone about your habit and build a community effort. It will reinforce your new habit by sharing your secret. And you may even want to make it a competition with friends and family.

Keep Your Bills Safe

Remember to keep the bills in a safe place. Don’t call attention to it: i.e., label it the “$5 Bill drawer” at home. Hide it in inconspicuous place that’s easy to get to.  Or you may want to buy or make your own secret safe.

Make a safe out of household cleaning products.

One year later I found out that two of the people, who I shared the $5 bill tip, under the tent had started saving 5 dollar bills. One was my spouse who had a large stack of $5 bills I discovered in a chest of drawers. The other was my friend Dena. Apparently her kids (all in college) were quite jealous of her stash. She is considering a new hiding place after showing off her stash of bills.