The $37 experiment

Written by
Peter Dunn

Yesterday I asked Facebook and Twitter followers to immediately transfer $37 from their checking accounts into their savings accounts without asking questions. While at first this message was reminiscent of a Nigerian prince asking you to send him a money order in exchange for great wealth, it was actually a Pete the Planner diabolical experiment. How many people would follow these directions? And of those that did, how many people would realize the point of the exercise?

No matter who you ask, I think that everyone would agree that $37 is about as arbitrary a number as you can get. It won't, in itself, help you retire. It won't, in itself, replace the brakes on your car if they were to go out. But when you take numerous amounts of arbitrary and insignificant amounts of money and put them together, then you actually start to make financial progress.

Generally speaking, people don't save money because they forget about saving money. If people are prompted to save money on a random occasion, then they are more likely to see the ease of doing so. At last count, yesterday's experiment saved nearly $2,000 based on those who let me know that they went through with the exercise. That's pretty decent for such an insignificant and arbitrary amount of money.

The best thing you can do is this: don't kill kittens. The second best thing you can do is this: setup a reoccurring transfer from checking to savings on a set day every month. Start with a small arbitrary amount of money, and then gradually increase it. For other great tips like this, pick up a copy of 60 Days to Change. I know, that was a choppy segue. Oh well.

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