Kansas City couple makes cash purchases
Celebrating Savings Successes
When Edward Linnebur signed up as a Kansas City Saver about a year ago, he already had a history of saving. “But my saving was intermittent. There was no real consistency to it.” Enrolling as a Saver caused him to pay more attention to saving, he said, and that has really paid off.
Mr. Linnebur is director of neighborhood impact for Kansas City Neighborhood Alliance, a separate office of which coordinates Kansas City Saves. He joined the program after setting up a “lunch and learn” Saves presentation for one of the community groups he works with.
He had recently married at the time, he said, and hearing the presentation got him and his wife “talking about money, and how to save, and about how much money we could save…One of the real keys to my success has been having an open dialogue with my wife about how we spend our money, how we use money,” he said. Saves also helped them to identify lots of small practical ways to saves money – like bringing their lunch to work two days a week. That caused the couple to take a close look at their budget, and “we started to see all sorts of ways we could save money.”
Now they both have a set amount of money automatically deposited from their paychecks into savings. “It helps keep us from being tempted to use it for something else,” he said. And before they withdraw money from savings, they both have to agree. Saves also helped them to set clear goals, Mr. Linnebur said. Their first goal was to buy a convertible, which they recently accomplished when they paid cash for a “brand new” used Jeep. “It may sound frivolous, but it is something we had both always wanted and never had.” When the time came to make the purchase, Mr. Linnebur said he had so enjoyed watching the savings amount up that he almost didn’t want to spend the money. “It’s kind of addictive.”
The have since set the goal of remodeling their family room. “It’s going to take us maybe a year to get that saved up, but then we’ll have enough to really do it just the way we want to have it done.” In the meantime, planning how it is going to look helps keep them from wanting to spend the money on something else, he said. Mr. Linnebur and his wife also both save all their pocket change and deposit it into savings. “Some months we have as much as $80 in change to deposit.” Over a year that could add up to nearly $1,000. There’s a lot of things I’d like to do with $1,000,” said Mr. Linnebur, who clearly enjoys pondering the possibilities.
His advice to others: Think of saving like dieting. “You have to celebrate yourself and the success you have” with an occasional “reward for all the hard work.”
“We started to see all sorts of ways we could save money.” --Edward Linnebur