Back in high school, two friends and I decided to collect all the change we found in the hallways.

You can call me a loser, you can call me savvy or you can call me lame... All are true.
What’s truly undeniable, though, is the amount of money we saved up. Our less-than-seven-months of saving banked us around $20. You’re right, the amount isn’t all that impressive. But when you think that we made all that money doing pretty much nothing, well, I think it’s kind of amazing.

I recently read about a woman who saved every five-dollar bill she received. At the end of Marie Franklin’s third year of saving, she had pocketed $12,000.

She says there’s a trick to this money saving… trick:

This idea will only work if you are disciplined. When I decided to save my fives, I meant it, and I save every one. No exceptions. (OK, once on the Mass. Pike I gave the toll collector a 20 and he returned three fives and four ones. I panicked. This was my allowance for the week. I asked him to give me a ten and more ones instead.) Otherwise, if I get a five dollar bill back - at CVS, or Starbucks, or Marty's on Washington Street - I tuck it away, smiling.

Ms. Franklin’s frugality got me thinking about ways to save some up some money.

Moneyhacks recommends rounding up to the nearest dollar any purchase you make and pocketing the difference between that number and whatever you just paid out. For example, if you buy gum and it costs 1.13, the difference between that number and $2.00 is $0.87. You would store that money away as savings.

Moneyhack’s wife saved a remarkable amount this way:

As a result, she saves an average of 50 cents every time she performs a financial transaction. She’s made roughly 1000 transactions since she started this, and now has $500 more in the account than her checkbook register shows.

Spotya.com, a site with another blog suggests that you simply pay everything in cash. This way you comprehend just what you’re spending:

Believe me, when you pay in cash, you SEE that money goes through your hands. When you use that plastic card, it doesn’t hit as hard. You almost don’t feel like you’re spending. Cold hard cash is a rare commodity these days. It’s really sad. $20 doesn’t go far as it use to.

With many blogs, I get lured in by the comments that people make at the end of a post. They’re often suggestions on how that blogger’s ideas can be expanded upon. Well, here’s a response to Lifehacker’s Top Ten Ways to Trick Yourself into Saving Money that I had to share:

Play World of Warcraft.
I was going to the bar Tuesdays and Thursdays because they had $2 for any drink specials, I was dropping about $40 a week at the bar. Now I pay $15 a month and I don't go out. Sure, I don't have a social life but in return I now own a house, a car, two bikes and two level 70 characters.... and I'm a year out of college... .debt free.
Yeah, it sounds like a distorted way of saving money but really if you boil it down... all I'm doing is distracting myself from spending money, which can be applied to many other activities other than WoW.

To each his own, I suppose…

What works for you?