How Lady Gaga can help you save up money for your wedding
Budgeting Advice
Guestpost by
on March 09, 2011
46
Craig Gleason's Gaga dollars.
Joey, my fiancée, and I weren't officially engaged until September 2010, but we knew early on in our relationship that we were headed towards marriage. We also knew that paying for a wedding would be one of the most annoying financial undertakings of our lives.
Then in July 2009, a Lady Gaga song came on the radio and changed everything.
No, seriously. I was incredibly sick of the song, so I changed the station… right to another Lady Gaga song. I changed the station again… to yet ANOTHER Lady Gaga song. I sent a text to Joey:
Geez. 3 Gaga songs on at a time. We should put a dollar in a jar every time we hear one.
And so started our so-called Wedding Jar.
The song game came to include any song by the Black Eyed Peas, Fall Out Boy and Lil' Wayne's "Lollipop." "Lollipop" and Fall Out Boy were worth $5 each, because they are played on the radio less. Eventually, we also added $1 for every time we saw someone wearing camouflage (not military-issued). We would also have bonus weeks with $1 for things like seeing yellow plaid shirts or hearing Madonna songs from before 1996.
Saving money is like working out: much easier when you have
(a) a partner
(b) a goal
and
(c) a fun way to do it.
Our friends thought it was hilarious and I would regularly get texts with things like, "Lady Gaga on Z-100!" or "Old guy next door wearing camo today." And, in the spirit of saving money, we decided to actually put money in the Jar for whenever our friends saw/heard them too. We kept the Jar going until September 2010.
How much money did we save between July 2009 and September 2010?
$6,730.00!
That's an average of $480 per month. This means we each put about $3,365 or an average of $240 each per month in the Jar in just over a year. I don't think I've ever saved so much money for a specific purpose so quickly in my life!
There was an actual jar and on the first of every month I would take our money and put it into a savings account at my local bank with a crappy interest rate.
In September 2010 we stopped putting money into the jar and we researched CDs with high interest rates until we would really need the cash–which would be mid-late spring 2011 when payments for venues, flowers, etc, would be due.
We went with Ally Bank's High Yield 6-Month CD (an online bank) because they consistently had the highest CD rate. We got a 1.3% interest rate and so far we have netted about $40 in interest on our Jar fund. Not much but better than the .05% from the savings account (about the same as keeping it in a jar).
Saving money is like working out: much easier when you have (a) a partner (b) a goal and (c) a fun way to do it.
In case you're curious, we got the most money from seeing people wearing camo — about 40% of our Jar fund.
About Dora Figueiredo
A happy bride-to-be planning a semi-long-distance wedding!
Sami said
Wow, such a great way to save money! Thanks so much for sharing!
My fiancé and I will most likely be implementing this or a similar system. We both have trouble saving money, and this sounds like it should be super fun and easy!
Dani B said
Thanks for the awesome idea!!
I'm on a pretty tight budget so I don't think I could quite pull this off. But I have decided to start using cash whenever I go to the store and not spend any of the coins I get in change. Hopefully over the next year it'll add up so I can contribute to our big day
Rachel {at} It's a Hero said
This is SUCH an awesome idea! I'm not yet engaged, but I think I may do this. We have a cruise planned for September, and if we both do this, we'll be able to have the vacation of our dreams!! Thanks for the awesome idea!
Kari said
Each time Nate and I come across a dollar bill printed from a reserve represented by one of our initials (E, K, L, J) we put it aside. My Mom and Dad always did that for their rainy day jar–amazing how fast it adds up!
Stephanie S. said
we have already started the game and are up to $6. thank you SOOOO much for the inspiration! Ours include: seeing dachshunds (we have one and get excited when we see them around the city), seeing GA license plates (from GA, live in DC), hearing Miley Cyrus songs, and seeing "homo haters" (anti-gay protesters.. we wanted them to indirectly contribute to our wedding fund.
Sarah said
anti-gay protesters?! For real, that's an actual thing?
Allison said
My partner and I are doing this only we do it with "bad" jokes. Not dirty jokes just the jokes that are so bad that no one laughs.
I like the idea of assigning a value to certain things, maybe puns will be worth $5 now.
Jara said
I saw this post a week ago – what a fantastic idea! We adapted the game to include items that work for us, with the starting point being "Put a quarter into the jar every time the cat sneezes" (poor guy has some allergy issues..) – we plan on adding items and increasing amounts whenever we think of something good. Thanks for the fun and simple savings idea!
Angela said
I started doing this a month ago. I work in a small lab and got my co-workers in on it, we added a $5 song of the week and keep tally marks on our dry-erase board. So far, I'm up to $45!! Thank you for this article!
Girl_Squishy said
What a Camo-tastic idea! We're pretty much a cash free household as well, but perhaps it's time to revise that….
Anne G said
Love this!!
My Fiancee is in the military and we have been putting a dollar in a jar everyday he's been overseas. It started as a joke that when we'd have an amzing date when he got back state-side but its better used for the wedding….
Now I think i am going to suggest that we add extra things to the list.. like everytime we play our song or something…
Thanks so Much!!!
Jenni said
Just told my fiance about this and he loved it! We both love Lady Gaga, so we decided to stick with any Gaga song, plus a number of other specific songs that come on regularly (Last Friday Night by Katy Perry and Moves Like Jagger by Maroon 5 just to name a few). We are also going to add a dollar for every time we see a girl wearing shorts and a hoodie, when he leaves the toilet seat up, and I laugh so hard I snort. Our $5 things are hearing Bohemian Rhapsody and seeing a mullet. (We couldn't do camo, living in Oklahoma, we wouldn't be able to afford our monthly bills lol)
Angie Rodriguez said
Awesome! I Love that you made me laugh about the girl in the hoodie and shorts! My Fianc'e HATES girls in shorts and UGG boots! Lol…that should ours!
Kim Forest-Smith said
I am so excited about this idea! I listen to the radio all day at work!
Dana said
This is the best idea ever! My fiance and I are thrilled to try this out! Some of ours…we have this joke about how neither one of us have ever seen a dalmatian in real life but we have seen pandas! So any dalmatian sighting and it's an automatic $20 in the jar! LOL we are also quitting fast food and anytime we want to eat out we are going to calculate what we would order and put that money in the jar, another joke we have is about people ALWAYS being in the neighbors driveway so anytime we see no one out there $5 in the jar! We are zeppelin freaks and we always do the "zeppelin" search on the radio $1 per song and we will pay for our wedding in no time! I'm so excited to start!