13 years of saving change nets ... a brand new car!

A Frankport, Indiana man spent 13 years saving spare change and has finally cashed it in, using approximately $25 thousand in savings to acquire a 2008 Dodge Ram. He had done the same thing in 1994, when he used rolled change to purchase a Dodge pickup and a Neon for his wife.

While Paul Brant should certainly be commended for paying cash instead of taking a high interest car loan as so many less savvy consumers do, he made a big mistake. By letting his change sit in old coffee cans for more than a decade, he gave up the opportunity to earn a lot of interest.

While this is an extreme example, it's a good example of a mistake that lot of people make. Frugality and saving is important but, if you're going to do the hard part, you might as well do the easy part: Earning decent interest on it.