The Latte Factor: Does it Work?
What’s better: saving money in small, incremental ways or in big, sweeping changes? That’s the big difference between Trent’s The Simple Dollar and Ramit’s I Will Teach You To Be Rich.
These are two of the top personal-finance sites on the Net, and since I’m such a Ramit fan, I usually side with him. Yes, small changes can make a difference, but they aren’t as effective as the big things like making more money instead of not drinking coffee every morning to save $2/day.
I bring this up because Patrick has a post about going beyond the latte factor over on Cash Money Life that piqued my interest.
It’s all about small changes that can save quite a bit of money. As I ran down his list, I realized I’ve been doing most of these things for a while so I decided to tally them up and see how much I’ve actually saved.
Use a high-yield savings account: According to my last ING statement, I’ve earned $1,544.79 in interest since I opened my account in 2006. This isn’t money I’ve saved, mind you, this is free money I’ve made from just keeping my money there. And this is with the interest plummeting over the past year.
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