Meet 'Miss Piggy'

No, not that Miss Piggy. This Miss Piggy ...
And in case you were wondering, yes, she is a piggy bank. You know, for money? I've been pretty good about not going overboard with buying things and I've managed to save money a lot more than I have in the past. This is a very good thing because it means I have money for my vacation and I wont be broke as can be when I get home. This is a very, very good thing. But aside from moving money from savings to checking or vice versa I have a strange fascination with physically putting money away, hence the piggy bank.

I've been collecting stray change and whatnot for as long as I can remember. I usually dip in and out of it as the need for change pops up, which usually meant rummaging around for quarters which left me with a whole lot of pennies! What a useless bit of change they can be, until they add up. Earlier this year I took my cup of change (in case you were wondering it was a plastic souvenir cup from the San Francisco Zoo) to our Credit Union to "cash in" and along with some cash that I kept hidden at the bottom of the cup and it easily came out to something over $200. The money went towards my Park Hopper for the upcoming Disneyland trip (27 days from now, in case you were curious) with some spare parts left over for savings and the whole process started over again to see what kind of extra spending money I could save up before I leave. The only difference this time was that I wanted something a little more ... permanent. Harder to break into to fish for change.

It didn't help that these ceramic and brightly colored piggy banks at Target went on clearance just days later. Miss Piggy cost me about $2.

It's not so strange to have a piggy bank, but you'll probably find it strange that I keep track of what I put into said piggy bank. I am not joking when I say I have a spreadsheet tacked to my door so I can mark off every penny, dime, nickel, quarter, or bill that goes in to Miss Piggy. Already I have about $68 saved up in there and I still have a few weeks to go along with a trip to the recycling center. I've got lots of plastic bottles and aluminum cans to take in. I wish there were fewer since I did vow to drink less soda this year, but that's still a work in progress.