Abby Rippy’s favorite expression about savings is “Every penny counts.” Abby knows all about pennies adding up. When she was growing up in Oregon City her mom kept a change jar to put coins in at the end of each day. When Abby was about 7 or 8 she and her mom took the jar to their bank and opened up Abby’s first savings account. Over time that initial deposit grew, as Abby added her birthday money and Christmas money. Once a year her mom would allow Abby to make a withdrawal for something she had planned to buy. “I remember having my own ATM card to access it and my mom taught me how to use the machine. I would only do it with her permission. My mom taught me how to save and budget.”
Abby kept adding to that savings account over the years, depositing her wages from summer jobs in anticipation of college. She worked while in college and continued to save. “I needed to start paying my student loans once I graduated, but I was not sure I would get a job right away, so I used my savings to fall back on to make the loan payments for the first year.”
Abby is now a Personal Banker for Bank of America in Portland. As a fairly recent college graduate, she knows about the uncertainties that life brings. “Who knows what will happen a week from now or 10 years from now. Having an emergency savings fund allows you to not have to worry. You can maintain your lifestyle and not have to cut back, and that is important to a lot of people.”
Abby continues to save, having a portion of her paycheck go directly into her savings account. “I like to have the automatic transfer because I can keep it out of sight. I don’t see it as available in my checking account. Even if an employer does not do automatic transfers, every bank has the means to do an automatic transfer for you on a regular basis so you can save without thinking about it. You can write it off as out of bounds.” From the coin jar to her automatic savings, Abby knows that Every Penny Counts!
