Runner's Savings Account - One Year Later

I made it! Today is the one year payout date of my "Runner's Savings Account!"  I thought I could reflect on how everything went this first year, so you know what to expect when YOU start yours.

Print from johnsonmade

I guess the better poster for me would have been "A penny earned is a penny saved!" because all the the pennies from my Runner's Savings Account were hard earned through a few thousand miles last year. 

For those of you that are like, "What is she talking about?" Here's the summary: You run miles. You pay yourself for every mile run (I pay myself 50 cents per mile - but you can adjust for yourself) and you put it a separate savings account just for this. You pay yourself bonuses for things like a PR, seeing a fox on your run, getting beeped at, etc...whatever fun thing you can think of to "earn" extra loot. You use all of the money to pay for races, running gear, whatever you deem worthy of your runner's cash. Got it?

Let me start by saying, a year goes way too fast! I feel like I was just coming up with this idea on one of my long runs, and here I am reflecting on it. I ended up with enough money in the account to pay for all of these fun things!

• My entry fee into the 117th Boston Marathon 
• My 4 day trip (flight and hotel) to Boston for the marathon
• Some swag from the marathon (a jacket, so far!)
• Maybe most importantly, my dog's annual trip to the vet ($350 - what?! She only weighs 12 pounds!)

Celebrating when my Boston jacket arrived.

If it is any indication of how I felt about doing this experiment for a year, I started another account this morning! It ended up being a game for me. I am certain that it improved my workouts, because I would run longer to make bigger deposits. I guess it sounds silly, but it actually played into my training. I loved getting to put extra money into the account when weird things happened, like adding $5 for every "Run Forrest, run!" that was yelled at me or an extra $1 for every mile raced. I also added all of the money found along my runs to the account which added up to over $60 dollars! Seriously, I had a lot of fun. Do it! Do it!

Print from colorbee

I don't know if all banks offer accounts like this, but my bank has a "VIP Savings" which means you can't withdraw from the account for one year and you have to make monthly deposits, but then they pay you a bonus $25 at the end of the year. Perfect for this! 

GET MONEY.