This year I am starting out with a challenge to my whole family to save as much money as possible this year. Ya wanna know something sad? My husband and I never had a savings account until a year ago. We had always been spenders and if it was in the bank account, it would most likely get spent. That has only gotten us in financial trouble in the past, so we are being a lot more conscious and aware of our spending now. Not only that, but we are making an honest effort to get money into savings and leave it there.
So this year I thought that on top of what we are putting into our savings account, NOT TO BE TOUCHED, we would start a 52 week savings challenge where we will be able to do something fun as a family with the money that we save.
The thing is, I didn’t like how most of the 52 week savings challenges were laid out. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be putting $200 into a savings jar during the month of December. I’m thinking about paying for gifts instead. So I switched things up a little and instead everything is a $2 difference each week. You start out small, increase each week and then when you get into July you are paying your highest amounts into the savings jar. Then you work your way back down and you are only putting $20 into the jar in December.
Now another idea is if you have a good pay week, but you’re only supposed to be putting $13 into the jar, jump ahead a bit and put the $49 instead. Mark it off so you know you have done it, and then you have another lack week later in the year when you can jump back to the $13. I have put a column for you to mark off so that if you want/have to jump around a little you can….the total amounts will just be a bit off until you reach your last week when you will have $1378 saved!!!
And at the bottom of the printable I have a place for you to write your challenge goal. I’m thinking that our goal for our 2015 savings challenge is gonna be Disneyland. What is yours?
a few other ideas you may love:
Great plan! Will start doing my own savings challenge too.
This is awesome! Something we can definitely work on!
This looks like a great plan to help save money!!
This is a great plan and perfect way to start saving!
Great challenge! And love that bicycle print, too!
i’ve been looking for ways to save that make sense and this plan does! Love the flexibility!!
What a great idea!! Love it!
We have been saving a little every year. Great plan!
what a great idea!! I love these realistic ways to actually save money!!
This is awesome! I’m totally printing this off and doing it with blogging income. And I’m not telling my husband. He’s going to be so surprised at the end of the year.
That is such a fabulous idea. What a fun surprise for your hubby come December
Love this! So smart!
This is such great information! I’m really bad about keeping a budget and saving money so this is something I’d like to try and do better this year. I’d love to use your printable as well. It will be great for keeping me organized. Thank you!
I also love the idea of adding extra on a good week, or even change left over in your wallet. It would be great to see what really ends up in there at the end.
We’re not quite in a position to start saving since we’re still in school and currently struggling to make ends meet. Ha ha! Can’t wait till we actually have some money to save! Good luck this year!!
Saving is so important. One tip I heard years ago was that every time you get a raise, increase your 401k. That way you never notice!
That is so smart!!! I love that idea
This is a great idea! I just sat down with our budget again this weekend to devise a new plan.
This is such a great savings method, I did it a few years ago and it was a great way to get some extra cash built up!
I think if I try this I would start with week one, but when I get half way go to the end so that I am saving those bigger amounts during the summer months when life isn’t as expensive. I love the concept!
That was exactly what my thinking was. So if you take a look at the challenge printable you will see that the most expensive months are during the Summer months. Then once Summer is over it counts back down, ending at just $20 that you have to save during December!! That was the goal I wanted to accomplish with this savings challenge.