Clean Out your Wallet

At the end of every day I would come home and clean out my purse.  At first I did it to lighten the load.  I have a bad back and resented carrying a lot of loose change.  But after a while I noticed that the money was adding up.  Saving my change became a lifestyle choice.  When I was sick and broke waiting for my disability checks to start coming, my penny jar came in very handy.  One week I literally had no money so I walked my penny jar down to the local bank.  They have a free coin machine that counts the change and puts it into the checking account.  It's a free service.  After years of using my penny jar as a doorstop, I emptied it out and had spending money for the week.  I was so happy I restarted the coin jar savings.  A year later when we went on another cruise, I used the coin jar savings for tips on the boat.  It was painless and fun.  One year I remember we paid for our vacation out of the piggy bank.  My husband got a hold of a huge carnival piggy bank.  Every day we would drop coins and dollar bills in the bank.  It adds up and is generally a painless way to save money.  It can be a very pleasant surprise to find how much money can be saved that might have gone to silly spending.  Clean out your wallet every day.  Take out the coins and the dollar bills and watch your nest egg grow.
Also use cash and keep very few cards in your wallet.  All you need is a debit card and one credit card that gets paid off at the end of the month.  More than that is just stupid spending waiting to happen.  Eliminate temptation.  My favorite card is my Discover Card.  It offers cash back but it is also easy to keep an eye on my spending.  One little phone call and I know I have to stop using it.