By Dean L.
When you read those statistics about Americans not saving money and going into credit card debt, you could place me as the poster child of the movement. Not only do I have a huge amount of credit card debt, I had less than $5 in my bank account a couple of months ago. This had been a typical savings amount for me for as long as I can remember.
I have read about saving money and have known for long time that it’s something that intellectually I know I should be doing, but there had never been the incentive for me to do so. The paltry interest rates that banks pay made me feel like it was a waste of time to put aside money so I took my chances each month and played the lottery instead. It was always $2 here, $5 there, but it added up to close to $100 over the entire month.
That all changed two months ago when I walked into my local credit union and learned about a new savings promotion they were offering called “Save to Win” where if I placed $25 or more into a 1 year CD, I had a chance to win up to $400 on a monthly basis plus a chance at $100,000 at the end of the year. Although the payout isn’t as high as the lottery, it gives me a chance to win something which makes the low interest rates more palatable.
Since that time I have put aside the money that I would have put toward the lottery and instead have placed it into CDs. I’ve opened 5 CDs over the last 2 months which has my savings at more than $125 — an amount that I haven’t had saved in years. I plan to continue to place the money I would have spent on the lottery into CDs for the rest of the year and should have close to $1000 in savings by then. And if I’m lucky, I may win some cash prizes along the way or $100,000 at the end of the year.
Editor’s Note: The Save to Win program is currently offered by eight credit unions in Michigan and is only available to residents of Michigan
Do you have a personal story about saving money? We’d love to hear about it.