Savings…

Ways to ‘challenge’ yourself and put money in the bank… Especially with costs of EVERYTHING going up…

If you find saving money a challenge, maybe the problem is that you’re not actually challenging yourself. Maybe you should take on a money-saving challenge – a sort of game to inspire you to save money. If you don’t save money, it may not be for a lack of money. It may be that you simply haven’t trained yourself to get into the habit of saving. So, if you’re looking to save, consider these money-saving challenges:

52-Week Savings Challenge Simply decide you’re going to save $1 a week or $2 or $5. Something manageable is the key, and preferably something meaningful. If you save $5 a week, you’d have $260 at the end of the year, but you probably won’t feel that much satisfaction. However, if you manage to save $100 a week, you’d have $5,200, which could pay for a vacation or holiday gifts or serve as an emergency fund. Or be creative and save $1 the first week, $2 the second, $3 the third and so forth, and you’ll have $1,378 by the end of the year.

“No Spend” Challenge Pick a weekend or a week and you spend no money except for paying bills. The idea is to save some money by not spending.

Pantry Challenge This is a contest in which you declare you won’t buy any food until you’ve exhausted all the possibilities from your refrigerator and pantry. As long as the food is not expired, this is your chance to consume what you’ve already bought and save money for a few days or weeks.

The ‘Keep All the Change’ Challenge Any time you receive change or find loose change in your house, put it in a jar. Do this for a year, and see how much you have at the end.

I’ve done this for years to ‘challenge’ the grandkids and I usually have between $400-500 at the end of the year.

Holiday Gift Challenge Open a holiday interest-bearing savings account at your bank or credit union for any weekly amount, and when December arrives, you have money for
the holidays.

365-Day Nickel-Saving Challenge On the first day put a nickel in a jar. The next day put 10 cents into the jar. The third day, 15 cents, and so forth. On day 365 you’ll deposit
$18.40 into the jar and you’ll have saved $3,339.75.

‘No Eating Out for a Month’ Challenge In 2019, Bureau of Labor Statistics found the average household spent $3,526 on dining out. Using that logic, if you don’t eat out in any given month, you might save $293. This could be the easiest challenge – or the hardest, if you order a lot of takeout.

Weather Wednesday Money Challenge Every Wednesday put money in your savings place tied to the highest temperature in your town. If in August it is 110 degrees you put in $110. In the dead of winter and it’s only 17 degrees, you save $17. If it’s -3 you could take out three bucks or put nothing in. All things considered you’ll save quite a bit over a year.

‘Trim 1% of Your Salary’ Challenge Do the math and figure out what 1% of your take home income is and save that amount. 1% is manageable, so it’s not so painful that
you’re miserable. If you can only only cut half a percent you’re still better off.

‘Kick a Bad Habit’ Money Challenge Do you smoke? Drink a lot of soda? Go out for coffee every day? There are degrees of bad habits of course. Going out for a coffee every day isn’t anywhere in the neighborhood of smoking, but still, you may consume excess calories in your daily coffee drink if it contains sugary syrup and whipped cream.

Whatever the habit you wish you could drop, this could be a good time to tell yourself you’re going to finally end a pattern of behavior – and save money at the same time by not buying coffee or cigarettes. But arguably if you kick your habit at the end of the month, you should do something fun with the cash you saved to reward yourself for all of your hard work. Just as long as the reward isn’t, you know, a blended coffee drink or pack of cigarettes.

Courtesy of  money.usnews.com

Comments

Savings… — 13 Comments

  1. The worst part of hyperinflation is that you need a cash reserve to buffer the price increases, but every dollar you don’t spend will buy less and less each day.

    Whatever you do right now, do not draw down your pantry.

  2. A longer term challenge was one my bride did. When she started a new job many years ago, she assigned $25 a month to her 401k. When she got a raise the next year, she added the raise to her retirement fund, and she did that every year. I was getting regular raises and we were able to meet our obligations on her base pay and my take home. After 20 years at that job she was still taking home the same amount she did with her first paycheck, but she had a shipload of money in her 401k. We’ve been retired for 15 years and are living very comfortably.

  3. MY pocket change fund (whatever is in my pocket at the end of the day when i empty my pockets) buys me a new pistol about once a year.

  4. McC- Sadly true… and concur!

    Pops- Great idea! A military couple I knew did that with her salary, investing it monthly (he has a degree in finance). They are ‘well off’, to put it mildly. He retired as a Captain, and she as a Commander in the reserves.

    B- Good idea too!

  5. Kicking the smokin’ monkey off my back 14+ years ago has saved me tons of money, not only in what I was sucking into my lungs. Also, lower medical costs as I’ve had far fewer ‘respiratory infections’… unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on PoV) the savings went into a plumbing refit of my 115yoa house. Sheesh! Amazing how many “small leaks” turned into major hassles once we starting chasing the bigger leaks down…. oh yeah, the hubby and I did all the plumbing ourselves. 🙂

  6. My mom took her cigarette money when she quit and saved it in the drawer at home for 1 year. We all gathered round the table as it was counted and she had enough to buy 2 1 caret diamond stud earrings. She wore them 24/7/365 and never took them out.

  7. Start by making savings fun for the kids and into a habit. If it’s grandkids? Work with mom and dad so you’re not overstepping. A six year old learning to save half of an allowance is a great foundation for financial self-discipline as an adult.

  8. I only spend 10’s and larger,all change,1’s and 5’s go into the jar.

  9. Nice try. Truly… but we are way past Dave Ramsey.
    Either you buy all the gold you can afford NOW or you aren’t going to make it.
    Period.

    Stu. MBA, CPA

  10. Suisan- Great news! and yeah, houses ‘eat’ money…

    Margi- Wow!!!

    jet- Yep, doing that. The six year old had enough ‘saved’ to buy himself one of those ‘hover boards’…

    Ed- Amen!

    Doug- That’s a good idea too!

    Stuart- Thanks, I wasn’t aware it was ‘that’ bad already… dammit…

  11. Great post. I look back on profligacy with a kind of stunned amazement, you spent what?! on eating out? Etc. Now I save and hold a magic internet meme token. That Lambo won’t buy itself you know!

  12. My husband and I use a “penny” jar. The “pennies” are actually $1 bills.

    Here’s the rule-$1 bills are only to be used as tips for service. You can’t spend singles.
    You put any singles you receive as change into the “penny” jar.

    If you have $20 and what you want to buy is $1, more than likely, you’ll end up with at least 4 $1 bills that go in the jar.

    It really hurts when the cashier gives you all singles in change-LOL!

    Once a year, we count the money and use it as spending money on a trip!