Have you ever wished you had so much money that you could easily afford to take a last minute vacation to a tropical island when your friend invites you, or to drop an envelope of cash containing the downpayment on your dream house in the realtor’s office as soon as you see that gorgeous abode on the market? I get it – I have wished for that too. But since we weren’t born into money, there’s a different way we can go about having this money to spend when we need it.
Saving for your goals
Saving is such an un-sexy topic. Everyone wants to know how to get rich quick so they can jet off to paradise or lock down that house in the mountains, or even just buy everyone Christmas gifts without stressing! Sexy or not, I have figured out a way to make saving money fun, and to motivate yourself to save money consistently! It’s called a saving challenge.
A saving challenge is exactly what it sounds like – a challenge to save a certain amount of money every day, or week, or month, in order to meet a goal.
Now maybe it’s the competitive (*ahem* high-school) athlete in me, or the fact that I would flip the board before I would let someone else win monopoly, or because I get a crazy swell of pride in my chest when I look at a growing bank balance (akin to what most people feel when they look at their own children), but whatever it is – I think saving challenges are THE BEST way to put money away for a future goal. Read on below to find out why I love them so much, and to find several challenge worksheets to spark your saving challenge imagination!
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Why You Should Use a Saving Challenge
Do you struggle to save money? Do your goals keep getting pushed back because you can’t find enough extra to save each month? Maybe you think saving is just not for you!
The structure of a saving challenge could be the perfect thing to keep you on track and help you meet your money goals. Here are some benefits of doing a saving challenge:
- Consistency – With a saving challenge, you will be making deposits every day or every week. This consistent schedule will keep saving as a top priority and help you remember to do it!
- Habit – After you repeat the action of saving money several times a week or several times a month, you’ll start to build a habit of saving. The more you practice flexing your saving muscle, the easier it will become to save! Soon you will have a saving discipline that will keep you from falling off the wagon.
- Challenge – Doing a saving challenge is like playing a game. Making something not fun, like saving money, into something fun, like a game, will make you more likely to stick with it. To make it even more gamified, consider setting up a little reward for yourself at the end of the challenge. It’s a reward in itself to see that you’ve saved money towards an important goal!
- Watching your savings grow – When you start seeing your savings grow each day, week and month, this will give you a sense of encouragement and motivation to keep going.
- Save for anything – This challenge will not only help you develop a good habit of saving but will also allow you to save for something that you are looking forward to. Whether it is for a vacation, saving for a rainy day or purchasing something you have always wanted, you can use a saving challenge in so many different ways!
So if you want to jump on board, you can try any of these seven challenges below. There are a few pointers for each on how to start and accomplish the challenge.
7 Fun Saving Challenges You Should Try
1. 30 Day Money Saving Challenge
With this challenge, you will be able to save almost $500 in the next 30 days. You will be surprised at how quickly the savings start to stack up when you are just saving one extra dollar per day. You will start by saving $1, and you will end by saving $30. The simplicity of this challenge is beautiful.
So if you need to save money quickly, perhaps for a trip or a gift, this challenge can help you do that in just one month. The chart below will show you how to do it. You can easily modify the savings amount to fit your saving goal too.
2. $20 Money Saving Challenge
If you don’t want to save money daily, saving once a week will work too. This challenge outlines how to save $200 in 10 weeks by saving just $20 each week. That can easily be achieved by packing your lunch or cooking at home for one night each week when you would normally eat out.
This $20 money saving challenge is a great way to raise funds for a specific goal and on a specific timeline. The challenge is easy to extend for a longer period of time too. For instance, if you are planning to go on vacation four months from now, you can start this weekly challenge and by the 16th week, you will have $320 of money saved.
Saving $20 each week for a year will help you save $1,040 without even noticing it. This challenge makes saving money just a little more enjoyable.
3. $500 in 12 Weeks Saving Challenge
If you have a longer timeline than 30 days (see Challenge #1 to save $500 in 30 days), you can easily save $500 in 3 months with a little bit of planning. This way, you won’t have to save money daily, you can save on a weekly basis instead.
This challenge is particularly well suited to saving a fund for Christmas. So many people watch the year fly by, and arrive at Christmas without any plan for how they are going to afford presents and parties. It is so important to plan for big events ahead of time.
Using this challenge, you could start saving for Christmas in September, and have $500 saved by December. That way, you’ll have the funds to do your shopping a few weeks before instead of Christmas Eve (we’ve all been there). And you’ll be done saving in December, which will free up some cash flow so you have money to spend on last-minute unexpected things (like ugly Christmas sweaters and eggnog!).
By planning ahead, you can avoid so much holiday and money stress while controlling your Christmas spending.
4.12 Week Saving Challenge
Here’s another quick and easy way to save some big-time cash in a short period of time. If you follow this money saving challenge you will end up saving $1,015 in just 12 weeks.
This is a perfect challenge when you are trying to cut back unnecessary expenses. Since you will be setting aside $60 to $90 to $104 until the 12th week, you don’t have any choice but to cut back on your dining out, drinking out and purchasing unnecessary items like expensive coffee, uber rides, and that third chambray shirt (they’re great, I know) so you can save this amount of money.
This more intense kind of saving challenge will challenge you to get super clear on your prioirites, and ruthlessly edit out the rest of your spending habits that are not moving your towards your goals.
5. Save $500 in 6 Weeks Challenge
Imagine this, your best friend has an extra ticket for a concert across the country, and she invited you to come with her. You have 2 months before the concert, and you don’t want to empty your emergency cash stash. You realize you need to save up some money for your travel expenses and you need to do it fast.
The chart below will help you jump start your savings and put an extra $500 in your savings account over the next six weeks. This challenge can come very handy for last minute travel, excursions or any other unexpected payments you need to make.
As with the above example, it will be a lot easier to save this amount of money if you have a defined goal. When there’s something important you’re saving for, you’ll be more willing to cut out things that aren’t as important to you in order to reach your goal.5
6. 90 Day Saving Challenge
This 3-month saving challenge will leave you with over $2,000 when you’re done! Instead of saving every day or every week, this is a saving schedule to put away different amount ranging from $50 to $200 every 5 days. For a challenge like this, you might consider getting a side hustle, whether that’s walking dogs, teaching english online, or driving for Uber or Lyft. That would be an easy way to drum up some extra cash for this saving challenge!
7. 52-week Saving Challenge
This list would not be complete without the most notable challenge of all time – the 52-week saving challenge. This crazy popular challenge is also kind of tough, but it’s great for saving for a larger, long-term goal like a big vacation or a down payment on a house. There are so many variations of this particular challenge, so I’ve presented a few options below.
Original 52-Week Money Saving Challenge
What makes the original 52-Week Money Saving Challenge popular is because the idea is simple. As you can see in the chart, you begin by setting aside just $1 in the first week of the year and then gradually increase your savings by a dollar a week throughout the year. So you save $2 in Week 2, then $3 in Week 3, and so on until you’re stashing away upwards of $50 a week next December.
4 BONUS CHALLENGES!
$1,000 in a Year Saving Challenge
This challenge starts with saving $1 a week and increases it to saving up to $35 a week towards the middle of the year. Then, the amount you need to save decreases again until you are only saving $1 in the final week! That will make it easier to free up some cash towards the end of the year for holiday expenses. The end result is $1,000 saved!
$5 Per Week Saving Challenge
This variation includes saving $5 the first week, and then increasing your savings amount by $5 each week until you are saving $260 in week 52. This will leave you with $6,980 at the end of the year! This is great for a larger purchase such as a car or downpayment on a house.
Save $10,000 in One Year
Are you ready for this one? If you have a HUGE saving goal, like a down-payment on a house, or a hefty emergency fund, this challenge is perfect for you. You’ll be saving between $125 and $325 per week all year. Sounds like a lot, but if you want to be moving quickly towards a big saving goal, you’re going to have to be creative. I would suggest starting a side-hustle that could bring in the extra money each week. See this post for 9 ideas of how to earn money (starting today!).
Save $5,000 in a Year
If the challenge above was a bit too intense for you, why not cut it in half? You can still save a substantial amount of money, $5,000, in just one year. If you need a downpayment of 20% for a $100,000 house, you can use this challenge for 4 years in order to save your downpayment quickly!
What’s great about this challenge is that it will help you build your savings and create good saving habits. This challenge offers a straightforward game plan and motivation needed to help you start saving. It is commonly done around New Year to help people save for the upcoming year, but of course, you could begin anytime throughout the year.
Bottom Line
These saving challenges could change your relationship with saving forever. If instead of feeling restricted by a saving plan, you felt excited to meet the challenge instead, your money mindset and saving habit would become much stronger.
I know it can be difficult to change your saving and spending habits, so I hope these money saving challenges will help you stay on track. Keeping score and watching yourself make progress toward a goal will absolutely keep you motivated to go on with the challenge. In the end, saving challenges are one of the simplest and most fun ways to save, and the reward at the end can be very satisfying.
Your Turn:
How about you? What money saving challenges are you going to try this year? Let me know in the comment section below.
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