by Hope
Have you ever participated in a savings challenge? There are all sorts of variations. It’s a gimmick to get people saving.
I have decided that the $1,100 I will receive from my Self Lender account will be my new emergency fund. And that I am going to keep focusing on paying down debt versus going into savings mode again.
But I do want some additional savings…
Save $5s
The first thing I started doing was saving $5s. Have you heard of this one?
The first time I saw it online, the person had a shoe box full of $5 bills just stacked together. It was pretty inspiring.
While I’m not using a shoe box, I do have my change jar. I know it’s gimmicky but this works for me. I am committed to not spending any $5 bills.
As my friend and I were talking the other day, she suggested another option.
52 Week Challenge
Have you heard of the 52 week challenge? There are a number of variations. Essentially, you start at the beginning of the week, and save the number of dollars based on the week of the year.
For week 1, you save $1. For week 2, you save $2…for week 13, you sav3 $13. You get the point.
Well, she suggested doing the challenge backwards so instead of ending the year with needing to save the most money per week, right around the holidays. You start the year saving $52 and go backwards from there. Make sense?
I don’t know if I can commit to this one right now. But if you are interested, I created 52 week savings to keep me on track if I do.
Tell me what your favorite savings challenge is? I’ve got to say they definitely help keep me motivated.
Hope is a resourceful, solutions-driven online business manager with over two decades of experience helping clients streamline operations, manage projects, and grow their businesses through digital marketing and technology.
But life has a way of rewriting your plans.
A year ago, Hope made the decision to move in with her aging parents full time – a season she wouldn’t trade, even as it came with its own financial and emotional weight. Earlier this year, she lost her mother, and is now walking the tender, disorienting path of grief while learning what “forward” looks like from here.
Hope came to the Blogging Away Debt community in 2015 as a single mom raising five foster and adoptive children. She’s written through job changes, financial setbacks, and the bittersweet transition to an empty nest. Her kids are finding their footing in the world now – and so is she.
Rooted in faith and fueled by the same perseverance she’s brought to every hard season, Hope is ready to face her finances with fresh eyes and an honest pen. She believes that clarity, courage, and community can change the trajectory of anyone’s story including her own.
She lives in Austin, TX with her dad, loves adventures with her dog Addie, and is figuring out, one step at a time, what this next chapter is meant to be.
I just have a certain amount of money automatically transfered to an online savings account each time I get paid. Having it in a separate account with no checking or debit card access help to keep me from spending it. If I need money from the account, I have to log on and transfer to my checking account.
I was doing that with my W2 job, but with my varied income these days it doesn’t work. I don’t have set pay days and I don’t have set pay amounts. Every week is a new adventure.
I know people who do the 52 week challenge in a more random manner. They might one week add $12 and then cross off the week 12. The next week they might have $20 and cross off week 20. You’d still get to $1300 but it’s a little more flexible that way a strong week you can pick the higher weeks but a week where you are just barely making it you can put in the smaller number weeks.
I love this idea. This would really work for my varied income from week to week!
I know someone who put a one dollar bill between pages of a bible, when he got it full, he started over with five dollar bills. I thought that was super clever, who is going to go to a bible to look for money?
I like this spin on it. Hope, you could totally do this one, since it would work well with your irregular income. Save the big amounts when you get higher checks in and save the lower ones for the lean weeks.
Me too!