52 Week Money Challenge: Save For A Better Year! (2024)

FAQs

52 Week Money Challenge: Save For A Better Year!? ›

The 52-week money challenge involves saving an increasing amount of money each week for one year. The challenge can be adjusted to fit personal financial circ*mstances and goals. Opening a high-yield savings account and utilizing automated savings features can help make the challenge more manageable and successful.

The 100-envelope challenge is pretty straightforward: You take 100 envelopes, number each of them and then save the corresponding dollar amount in each envelope. For instance, you put $1 in “Envelope 1,” $2 in “Envelope 2,” and so on. By the end of 100 days, you'll have saved $5,050.

The answer to that question depends on interest rates or rates of return. With no interest involved, putting one dollar a day into a bank account (or a jar at home) will see you end up with $365 in a year. Multiply that amount by 30 years and you'll end up with $10,950. Now let's factor in an interest rate of just 1%.

If you save $11-12 every weekday, for 52 weeks of the year, you get about $3,000. Now, if you also eat out a lot for dinner, eating in for dinner would save you just as much. And if you eat out on weekends, your total amount saved by cooking for yourself could reach $7,500 or more.

To reach $10,000 in one year, you'll need to save $833.33 each month. To break it down even further, you'll need to save $192.31 each week or $27.40 every day. These smaller chunks are much more realistic and simple to comprehend, making it easier to track your progress.

Setting realistic savings goals is essential to ensure that you don't set yourself up for failure. One way to do this is by breaking down your target amount into smaller milestones. For example, if you aim to save $10,000 in three months, you can divide it into monthly targets of $3,333.

How to save $5000 in 3 months challenge? ›

It works like this: Gather 100 envelopes and number them from 1 to 100. Each day, fill up one envelope with the amount of cash corresponding to the number on the envelope. You can fill up the envelopes in order or pick them at random. After you've filled up all the envelopes, you'll have a total savings of $5,050.

Cut Unnecessary Expenses From Your Budget

“To save $5000 in six months, one must have a budget or it likely won't work,” said Christine Sager of Sager Financial Coaching. “Divide $5,000 by six months and that equals $833/month that must be removed from the budget or earned in extra income.

Having a limited budget isn't a good enough reason not to save. With the 365-day penny challenge, you'll set aside a penny amount based on the day. For instance, day 1 – one penny, day 2 – two pennies, so on a so forth until the end of the year. At which point, you'll have almost $668 in the bank.

It's easy to save a penny, right? Save $0.01 on day one and $0.02 on day two, continuing to add another penny to your savings goal each day. The penny challenge can save you over $600 in just a year!

You'll end the challenge with over $1,300 saved If you successfully complete the 52-week money challenge, you'll have $1,378 set aside. You may have that earmarked for a specific financial goal —or you may choose to put it in a high-yield savings account as the start of emergency savings, if you don't already have one.

It works like this: Gather 100 envelopes and number them from 1 to 100. Each day, fill up one envelope with the amount of cash corresponding to the number on the envelope. You can fill up the envelopes in order or pick them at random. After you've filled up all the envelopes, you'll have a total savings of $5,050.

Week 1, you save $1.00. Week 2 you save $2.00, and it continues through the year, adding one more dollar to each week's savings goal. By Week 52, you'll set aside $52.00, which will bring the year's total savings to $1,378! LGFCU offers free financial planning services to help you navigate your personal finances.

The first step to reaching any financial goal is to break it into bite-sized pieces. If you want to save $5,000 in one year, you'll need to save approximately $417 a month. That's about $97 a week.

Match each week's savings amount with the number of the week in your challenge. In other words, you'll save $1 the first week, $2 the second week, $3 the third week, and so on until you put away $52 in week 52.