My aunt's 'just round up' trick broke my budget in 6 weeks

My aunt swore by paying for everything in cash and just rounding up what you get back in change into a jar. She said you'd hardly notice it and it adds up slow and safe. I tried it for 6 weeks. Spent about $480 total in cash. Put every coin and every dollar over the whole amount into a jar. By week 3 I was $62 short on my lunch budget because I ran out of cash faster than I planned. That jar money was my buffer, not savings. By week 6 I gave up. The jar had $58 in it but I had to break it open to pay for bus fare. Her advice works if you already have extra cash every week. I don't. Has anyone else had a family member's cash trick fail because they didn't account for how tight your actual spending is?

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lisa_bennett11d ago

My sister does the same thing with her spare change, and she acts like it's some universal law that works for everyone. The real issue is that these tricks assume you have a steady cushion left after bills, but a lot of people are running on razor thin margins where every dollar is already spoken for. Rounding up only works when the money you're rounding from was truly extra, not just the cash you needed to get through the week.