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By Rachael O'Connor
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Saving for a deposit for your first home can be incredibly tough, and one couple based in the United Kingdom did it in a unique way.
Kyle Greenwood, 34, began collecting coins before the pandemic, and when his first jar quickly filled up, his grandfather gave him a giant plastic bottle.
He told Newsweek: "Whenever I had pound coins it went straight into the bottle, change after nights out, meals out, that sort of thing. And it did become a little obsessive."
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A video shared to his TikTok account @kgreenwood90 shows the giant plastic bottle, filled with one pound ($1.28) coins, being eagerly cut open by Greenwood with a knife.
Aptly set to Abba's "Money, Money, Money," Greenwood first pours the coins onto a surface before putting them in several bags and heading out to count it.
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He and his partner estimated how much the coins might amount to, with Greenwood saying £4,651 and Cat guessing £4,855.
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And after painstakingly pouring the multiple bags of coins into a counting machine, they got their answer: a whopping £5,005.20.
Greenwood, based in West Yorkshire in northern England, told Newsweek that while there were "many times I've thought about dipping into it," he "fought against those urges."
At first, he didn't know what he wanted to do with the coins he was collecting, and considered a new car or a vacation, "but I settled on the idea that I would use it as a deposit for my first home with my partner."
"That idea alone kept me from dipping into it and gave me a bit more determination to fill it up and see it through," he said, adding it taught him "more self control" with saving and that it was all worth it.
"I was shocked to see the amount I had accumulated," he admitted.
And the numbers have climbed on his TikTok video too, which he said he uploaded just for a "bit of fun, not really expecting much, just maybe a few friends to see it."
At the time of writing, Greenwood's video, shared on July 20, had racked up over 65,000 likes and 1.5 million views, with one commenter joking: "Sharing is caring."
"That's why there's a shortage of pound coins," one user joked, while another said they were "inspired" and one declared: "I need to do this."
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In the United States, potential buyers can pay up to $100,800 for a down payment on a house, according to a report from Statista.
Buyers in Washington, D.C., have the highest median down payment, followed by Massachusetts at a median $86,592, and California at $85,179.
On the other end of the scale was Mississippi, where a median downpayment was $6,064, according to the report published in 2023. Nationwide, the median deposit was approximately $34,000.
Greenwood told Newsweek he never expected his video to go viral, calling it "bizarre."
"The internet is a funny place but I'm glad so many people have enjoyed the video and feel inspired to start their own savings journey off the back of this video."
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