President’s Day – What You Can Do With Each Dead Guy in Your Wallet

So let’s honor the Presidents of the past with ideas on how you can use each denomination for furthering your goals and keeping in mind our System of Ritual Practices for Money.

$1 – Washington

• Save a dollar a day, and at the end of the year you’ll have amassed more than $365.  Save that for retirement, and in 30 years, that dollar a day for a year is now worth $2,096.
• Give away a dollar a day.  Give $365 to a charity at the beginning of the year and save it all back.  Plus you’ll get a tax deduction.
• Commit to giving a homeless person a buck each day.
• Put it towards the Christmas fund.  It will make the holiday season less stressful so you can actually enjoy your family.
• Limit both your breakfast and lunch to only $1 a day.  Breakfast could be a piece of fruit and eggs or a piece of toast.  Lunch can be a can of soup.  Get creative, and save money.

$2 – Jefferson

• Double up the savings!  You’ll put away $730 for retirement.  That’s $4,193 in 30 years!
• If charities can do good deeds with a dollar a day, double it up!  You can feed 10 animals in a shelter for $2 a day.
• Cut back on those utility costs.  Cut your phone, cable TV, internet, and power bills.  Go down to Starbucks and use their wi-fi for free.
• Raise your deductibles on your auto and home insurance.  Save that money instead.
• Hang up that Diet Coke addiction.  This could be significantly more than this for some folks…
• Got kids?  Add to that Christmas fund or include birthday and other minor holiday gifts.  Or the gifts for all the friends of your kids.  It makes the parties so much more enjoyable.

$5 – Lincoln

• Saving $5 a day gets you $1,825 a year.  At retirement in 30 years, that’s $10,482.
• Bet it on your favorite sport this Saturday or Sunday.
• Limit your commuting costs to no more than $5 a day.  Take the bus, saving on car payments, gas, and insurance costs.  Plus you don’t have to pay for parking.
• Limit your dinner cost for a couple to no more than $5.  Cook at home, and see what you can make with $5 worth of groceries from the store.  I’ll bet you’ll be surprised at what you can do.
• Donate $5 a day to one or more charities.  You’ll see a tax benefit of $511 if you’re in the 28% tax bracket.
• Don’t drink that coffee in the morning, and instead pocket that money.
• College fund for the newborn started yet?  Saving $5 a day for 18 years  at 6% gets you over $56,000 for school.

$10 – Hamilton (not a President, I know)

• Saving $10 a day nets you $3,650 a year.  This would be almost $21,000 in retirement.
• Keep the total food bill for you family less than $10 a day.
• Put $10 a day toward your debt and it will be gone in no time.
• $10 a day for charities will sure do a lot of good for the less fortunate.

$20 – Jackson

• Saving a Jackson each day gets you $7,300 a year, or almost $42,000 in retirement.
• You need between the Jackson and Hamilton levels to max a Traditional IRA at $5,000.
• Put an extra $20 a day towards the mortgage.  On a $250,000 mortgage at 5%, this cuts half the time period off your mortgage and saves you $125,000 in interest.
• Can you earn some side income of $20 a day?  Make that you goal for the rest of the year!

$50 – Grant

• Saving $50 a day is what you need to do in order to max out your 401k to the $17,000 limit in 2012.  This will give you $18,250 a year, which is $105,000 in retirement.
• Keep you total housing costs below $50 a day.  Some areas of the county can do this easier than others.  Mortgage (principle and interest), property taxes, maintenance fund, electricity, and heating costs.  Might be more difficult than you think.  Maybe you should look at refinancing your mortgage?

$100 – Franklin

• Save $100 a day and you’ll have $36,500 at the end of the year.  That almost $210,000 for retirement!  Just think if you could put that much away each year.
• Investment earnings of $100 a day on average sounds pretty good.  Work to make at least this much every day.  Check out my portfolio if you have questions.
• Have you tried to vacation for less than $100 a day?  Hotel, car (if any), food, and entertainment.  Try it.  You’ll have to plan ahead, but I’d wager you could do this in any city in the world if you tried.
• Blog “professionally.”  Personally, this is the level where I would consider a blogger a pro.  If you can bring home $100 a day in online bacon, you’ve got what it takes.

Photos: US Bureau of Engraving and Printing

Readers, any ideas what you would do with some of these Presidents in your wallet?  What could you do to save each of these amounts?