What in the world is a DREAM Savings Account?
Updated: Click here to read the latest update on my DREAM Savings Account balance
So, I’ve been thinking (good start, eh?). Few weeks ago, I’ve sat down and came up with a list of things I’d like to accomplish. Cool kids these days call it “bucket list” and put things like “travel to 100 countries” or “eating world’s largest burrito!” on it .
Some of my goals and dreams are somewhat silly such as “driving an army tank” or “meeting Kevin Smith“. But other goals are very practical and I view them more like milestones as opposed to “dreams” – for example, starting my own online business that in turn will allow me to pay for my future kids post secondary education or become a silent investor in a business.
You can read the list in its entirety here.
DREAM Savings Account
The HUGE dilemma.
But here’s the big dilemma I’m currently facing. Let’s be honest, achieving these dreams in most cases will take some money and in some cases a considerable amount of money. While for some of these goals I’ll spend our income without regret (for example paying for our future kids’ education or paying off our mortgage), some of them are just plain silly. Achieving them will make me feel good and giddy, but I will not feel right if I spend my family’s money on them. In fact, I’ll feel selfish if I do so.
For example, buying a motorcycle while sounds kinda cool is just wrong with money we could have used for investments that will in turn make us more money. Come on, it’s a silly dream and a toy, how can I spend my hard-earned money on it while me and my wife could have used this money to move us closer to financial independence? It won’t feel right to me!
So, the solution is to divide the dreams and goals into two categories:
– Serious goals/milestones that we will achieve by using our work income (paying for our future kids education, investing, becoming financially independent, reaching target net worth)
– Silly personal dreams that I can achieve by the means of side income or “bonus” money (buying a motorcycle, traveling, starting my own scholarship, etc.). This is where the DREAM Savings Account comes in!
Technical mambo-jumbo:
I will start DREAM Savings Account at Tangerine Bank (because Tangerine is THE best bank for opening savings/checking account). It will be attached to our checking account to make it easier for me to transfer funds in and out of it.
As money accumulates, I will spend it on accomplishing our silly dreams. We will not borrow money for them, and I will only use the money I raise through side income.
If it reaches zero, I have to wait till money accumulates again. Once again, not a single dollar will be borrowed for them – after all, dreams come and go, but debt stays with you and grows.
Rules of the game:
– Only side income goes into DREAM Savings Account. None of my work income or my wife’s work income goes towards it as those funds are meant for boring things like paying bills, paying down our mortgage, and investments. DREAM Savings Account money on the other hand will be used for non-essential dreams! So no, I will not use our work income to fly a jet fighter!
– Source of funds for this account can include side hustles, quick jobs on the side, freelancing gigs (I’m not even sure what kind!), and any other work I can do on the side. Basically, it’s all about “bonus money” as opposed to our day job incomes.
– I’m allowed to sell my own items around the house to raise the money for DREAM Savings Account. This doesn’t include selling our TV or my wife’s jewelry (help me god if I ever do it), but if I happen to find some of my old computer games and sell them on eBay – it’s all fair by me.
– I will keep myself accountable publicly by posting all transactions in this account including all deposits. Yes, even if I pimp myself out to dig trenches on Saturday to make an extra hundred bucks, I will post about it.
– All dreams and goals completed will also be posted to share my small victories or major hits.
– I have options of doing whatever I want with that money and not feeling guilty or crying about it. This money can be invested on the stock market (which will hopefully provide some growth), it can be used as a down payment on a rental property (I have no plans of buying it at the moment), which in turn will produce more DREAM Savings Account funds. Who knows? Options are unlimited!
– The money can be cashed out for one of the goals/dreams on the list at any point with no rhyme or reason. For example, if I have enough money to give somebody that $500 tip on Christmas Eve and feel like doing so, I will do it without hesitation or feeling any guilt. If we have enough money to go to Churchill, MB to check out polar bears (yes, it’s one of our dreams too cause polar bears are awesome!), I will empty this account out and buy tickets. I will treat these funds as free money and use them to create memories and joy for me and my wife.
– I will not use these funds for anything else but accomplishing our dreams and goals. This is not to be used as emergency money because we already have an emergency fund for that. This is not to be used for paying down our mortgage or living expenses as we have our work income for it. And it’s certainly not to be used to buy greasy food because I’m not allowed it 🙂
– Whatever is the result of this experiment, I won’t feel disappointed. What’s the worst thing that can happen? I might lose passion for it and abandon it. Oh well, I’ll have a few bucks saved up. I might lose money in a crazy investment – but it’s not the bread and butter money I will be losing, it will be “bonus” money, so no big whoop.
Basically, the idea is to separate silly things we’d like to do from serious goals, and create an account where we can save money for them using additional income and feel absolutely no guilt when we actually spend it! Think about it as guilt-free money you can spend on anything you want – no matter how silly it is.
Would you like to join me?
DREAM Savings Account
Do you have some silly dreams that you’d like to achieve but don’t feel right about spending your work income on them? Why don’t you join me?
– Decide on what dreams and goals you’d like to accomplish. Go wild!
– Open your own DREAM Savings Account today. That’s right, today.
– BONUS: If you open your DREAM Savings Account at Tangerine using my orange key (14213984S1) both you and I will automatically get some FREE MONEY towards our dreams right away. That’s right, Tangerine Bank will give us both money towards our dreams just for opening an account and using my Orange Key (14213984S1). How cool is that?
Best Savings Account
– Think of the ways you can raise some side money towards your dreams. May be you have a hobby you can monetize. May be you can empty out your storage room of all the unnecessary items and hold a garage sale this weekend. Heck, may be you are willing to do some additional work on weekends in order to raise money.
– Collect additional income in your DREAM Savings Account and once you have enough – go and spend the money on it. Because you deserve it, you’ve earned it, and you don’t have to feel guilty about spending it. And your day job income stays untouched and can be used for more serious things!
– Let me know how you do! I’d love to hear from you!
I randomly met Kevin Smith one day 🙂 And then his sidekick Jay too! Cool cats in real life.
Good luck w/ the new challenge!
That’s so awesome. Kevin is one of my favorite artists and an inspiration!
PS: With your experience with baby cost tracking experiment, would you recommend posting updates on in and outs of the account as separate posts or just keep updating one page?
Definitely a great idea to accumulate savings and delay gratification for most purchases! We follow a similar model with our spending 🙂
Oh, I’ve been delaying gratification for the last 10 years lol. I think this is the part where I can actually spend money and not feel guilty about it!
Good luck. Can’t wait to see the updates.
I think one is coming this week already 😉
Fun! I would love to join you, but my extra money is getting funnelled to debt right now. Boo! Maybe next year.
My best friends met Kevin Smith and Jay when they were doing a speaking tour when they were filming on the new Degrassi. I might have to steal that goal from you. I might be able to quote entire sections of many of his films. I own the screenplay to Dogma – thats’ a little weird, right?
Alicia, I’m pretty sure I can out-quote you 🙂 I’ve been following his work for ages! Heck, after watching Clerks me and my friend went though movie-making phase where we worked on movie script for few weeks!
Dear Financial Underdog,
It sounds like you’ve got your finances pretty well sorted, and your thinking is very much along the same lines as mine, but I’ve noticed a “shortcoming” in your methods.
It sounds to me like you still have a mortgage, and you have Rainy Day and now Dream savings accounts. Stop that! Why would you have money sitting around earning 1.3% when you’re paying more (probably around 3%) interest on your mortgage? I know financial advisers recommend that type of thing, but they’re wrong. That advice is for newbies, not sophisticated thinkers like you.
If you have a mortgage that you’ve paid down considerably, then you’re no doubt eligible for a home equity line of credit at a rate just slightly higher than your mortgage. Get one, then pay all of your savings off your mortgage. That money sitting in the bank is just wasting away. Put it to work paying down debt and avoiding interest. The line of credit is now your Rainy Day account.
Your goal should be to keep your savings and chequing account balances as close to $0 as possible. The last few years that I had a mortgage, it was an Open (pay off as much as you want, when you want) mortgage with my payments set at “interest only”. I had a line of credit, which had a slightly higher interest rate than my mortgage, attached to my chequing account so that when my balance went below $0 I was into the line of credit. Every 2 weeks on payday, after a quick look at my upcoming bill payments, I would pay my entire positive balance off my mortgage, except for maybe $100 or so. Any expenses over the next couple of weeks could come out of the line of credit, and then 2 weeks later I’d do the same thing over again. This will save you money.
If you want a Dream account, leave the money with your regular money and track it in a spreadsheet. In fact, you can even track the money you’re saving by doing this and add it to your Dream balance.
You’re welcome!
Hi Grizz,
I’ll admit it, it’s not a bad advice at all. Yes, we have some money parked in high interest savings accounts and I thought about tossing theme into mortgage as well. But…for some reason I sleep better at night knowing that we have money available readily for us. And so does my wife. Women have an additional sense attached to feeling secure, and while I’m ready to fly as close to the ground in order to score some extra money, my wife isn’t. And you know what they say about happy wife and happy life.
I don’t really see it as risky at all, as you’ll have the line of credit as long as you have your house, and if you need to sell your house you’ll have lots of money to pay it off. The only downside I see to a line of credit is that some people can’t resist dipping into it for luxuries, but you’re obviously not that kind of person. I’m lucky in that my wife pays little attention to our finances, yet is naturally frugal and rarely overspends.
By the way, I’m in Kelowna too. I saw your column on Castanet and made my way over to your blog from there. Good job; keep it up.
You’ve probably already seen this guy’s blog, but if not you may find it interesting:
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/
I think he’s got his priorities just about right.
Thanks Grizz, I’ll check it out.
Before I met my wife, I had a bit of a problem with borrowing money for dumb crap. Had to pay off $20,000 in debt very quickly when collection calls started coming in. It’s been long cleaned up, but to this day any time some sort of borrowing situation is created whether it is credit card or line of credit, I feel like a ex-drug addict who went clean but finds himself in a situation with drugs present. I’m sure by now I have enough self-control not to get myself in trouble with it, especially with my wife on my side. But still, I always feel overly cautious about this sorta thing.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing, nice to see somebody from Kelowna as well!