Save Those Pennies: Financial Wellness Contest Winner Revealed

The beginning of the year is a great time to get your finances in check. For most of us, money is tight these days. So it's no wonder our members have such great tips on how to save it. We want to send a big thanks to all of you who participated in our Financial Wellness Contest. You can check out the discussion here - you'll find some great tips for saving your hard earned bucks.

Congratulations are in order for Charity Sawyer (OA username: charity) of Traverse City, MI. Charity was selected the winner of our contest so she'll receive a $25 Visa gift card as well as a free copy of Suze Orman's book, Women and Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny.

Here's what Charity had to say:

"Personally, I have a hard time saving money. It seems me or the kids ‘need' something all the time. Do we truly need it? Chances are, no. We recently moved to a small town but our banking is still done at the large bank in the neighboring town where my husband and I work. So in an effort to save money I have done two things: I set up a savings account at the local small town credit union and each month when I get my mileage check from work I put it in that savings account along with any other miscellaneous little checks (insurance refund checks, merchandise rebate checks, etc). It's much easier with no checks to access it or having a reason to be there. Second, I set up a Christmas club account at that same small town credit union and each payday have a preset dollar amount direct deposited into that account. Because it is a Christmas club account we are not able to draw the money out until the funds are released each October. Direct makes it impossible for me change my mind.

At work, I order all the office supplies for the corporate office. I have two primary companies that I work with and both offer free next day delivery with no minimum purchase required. So I open both web pages and comparison shop. If I have to, I order with both companies to [get] the most for my money. I have also spent some time online comparison shopping for vendors on our conference calling program. By doing that and switching companies to a pre-pay company, we've saved over $350 just since January 1st. With the high cost of ink jet printer cartridges I've also switched us to a local company that refills them and also offers free delivery and I've never waited more than 48 hours for my order. Not only does this save our company significant dollars but it helps our environment too."

Be sure to review all of the great tips for saving money - just click here. Thanks once again to all of our participants and check back for our next contest announcement tomorrow.