Saving is a huge part of becoming (and remaining) debt free. If you don’t have an emergency fund things can pop up and cause you to rack up some serious debt. Similarly, you can go into debt buying things if you don’t save money for big events like birthdays and Christmas. But, saving money is hard. Really hard.
Thankfully, the internet has come up with fun, catchy challenges to make you more financially aware and help you save money. After looking at some of the different challenges, I’ve decided to create my own 12-week challenge for savings.
Savings Challenges
About five years ago savings challenges began popping up on the internet. First, it started with the 365-Day Money Challenge. This challenge lasts throughout the year, as the name suggests, and helps you put aside small sums of money each day. The first day starts out with you saving just $0.01.
Next, is the 52-Week Money Challenge. Like the 365-day challenge, it lasts the entire year. However, this challenge ends with a larger amount in savings and focuses on putting money away weekly. The first week, people participating in the challenge put $1 into savings and work their way up to $52 by the end of the year.
Both of these are easy and help people who aren’t so great at managing their money or saving get some cash put away (even if it is only a penny at a time). Many people have been wildly successful at saving this way. So much so that they’ve put other twists on it, like the Bi-Weekly Money Challenge, Reverse 52-Week Money Challenge, and the Mega Money Challenge.
My 12-Week Challenge
For the most part, each of these challenges takes an entire year. If you’re also actively trying to pay off debt it can be overwhelming trying to put money into savings while effectively snowballing what you owe. That’s what got me thinking about a savings challenge with a shorter timeframe: 3 months.
Here is what I got figured out for a 12-week challenge…
- Week 1: $100 total
- Week 2: $250 total
- Week 3: $350 total
- Week 4: $500 total
- Week 5: $600 total
- Week 6: $750 total
- Week 7: $850 total
- Week 8: $1,000 total
- Week 9: $1,150 total
- Week 10: $1,250 total
- Week 11: $1,400 total
- Week 12: $1,550 total
For the first week, we will start by putting $100 into savings. Then, the second week, we will increase our contribution to $150 (making our total savings $250). Throughout the 12 weeks, we will alternate between putting $100 and $150 into savings. The fluctuation will account for the weeks we have “additional” expenses like health/beauty supplies or cleaning items around the house.
[…] If You Want to Save More in 2019, Try This 12-Week Challenge […]