Wrestling with the Bank of Smurf!

A couple of months ago whilst I was in the midst of trying to pay off my credit cards by the end of the year, I was reading around and looking for ideas to help me achieve this aim.  I decided to start putting loose change (apart from coppers and 5p's which I save for Little Bird) into a jar so that I could use it to help pay off the cards.

I decided to make use of this Smurf moneybox which was sat on a shelf upstairs doing nothing.  Cute isn't he?  I thought so too, but don't be fooled.  He was merciless.

All seemed to be going well until one day I got curious to see how much I'd saved and tried to open it.  It was jammed shut.  I continued putting 10p's, 20p's and 50p's into it, but as I couldn't open it I didn't end up using the money inside for the intended purpose.  To be honest in the lead up to Christmas I didn't have the time to fiddle about trying to open it or get the contents out and more or less forgot about it until the other day. 

In the course of my general blog reading I came across lots of different references to Sealed Pot saving which kept reminding me of the money inside the Smurf.  Eventually, I decided to try to get the money out and see how much there was.  I started off using a bookmark and shaking the Smurf to release a few coins via the slot.  I soon got fed up of this as I could have been there all day.  Instead I called upon the brute strength of OH who managed to persuade the Smurf to surrender his stash.  Albeit reluctantly.  There was £14 in there, which I was quite pleased about, as I hadn't religiously emptied my purse into it daily.  I decided to carry on saving it, but looked around for a different, less covetous vessel.  In the end I decided to use a gift box in which we'd been given some luxury food items at Christmas.

In true Blue Peter fashion it was prettified with some sticky backed plastic and washi tape et voila!

a new sealed box for savings.  It's quite roomy, so I'm hoping I'll be able to save quite a bit in here if I really put my mind to it.  I don't know what I'm going to earmark it for yet, but hopefully will think of something as the year progresses.  If I don't manage to pay off my overdraft, it can always go towards that. 

(Sorry Smurf, you did a great job, but you were just a little bit overly conscientious.  Take it easy from now on.  Put your feet up, read your book, enjoy life on the shelf.  No hard feelings.)