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
