As the year comes to a close, many of us are trying to avoid checking our bank accounts – holiday parties, Christmas presents for your friends and family (and yourself, of course), the office Secret Santa, and the travel back home to your family can cost people a pretty penny.
You've stumbled upon the right place if you're determined to cut your bad habits and expenses next year. In this blog post, we'll walk you through money-saving challenges to try if you want to reach your financial goals easier!
From the 52-week challenge to rounding up to your nearest dollar, each savings challenge is a great way to turn saving into less of a hassle!
Why Is It Hard to Save Money?
Reaching your savings goals takes time and effort. Here's why your piggy bank might be struggling.
With the cost of living increasing, many people now live paycheck to paycheck, meaning that most of their salary goes to expenses like rent or mortgage, food and drinks, utilities, and other necessities.
After you pay your bills for those things, you're left with little – so putting away some money at the end of each month is hard. So, those with smaller budgets may find it harder to save money. But it's not impossible, and we're here to help you put aside some extra money!
What Are the Benefits of Saving Money?
Here are some of the benefits of saving money:
- Long-term security: if anything bad happens to you or a family member, you always have an emergency fund that you can turn to.
- Financial independence: when you become financially independent, you don't have to rely on a financial institution and can live comfortably without stressing about money.
- Less stress: having a set amount of money put away for a rainy day will lower your stress levels because you won't have to stress about making next month's rent.
- Trying new things: people with a sizeable savings account have more freedom to try new things like starting a business, exploring new hobbies, changing careers, and moving to new places.
- Earn more money: if your savings account offers interest, it’ll build over time, and you'll make extra money from the money you put aside.
How Can You Save Money More Easily?
You've probably heard of people saying that if only you gave up impulse buys like a coffee before work or avocado toast for lunch, you'd save a lot more money easily. And that's not entirely false. Here are other ways to help you reach your savings goal more effortlessly.
- Open high-yield savings accounts to earn the highest percent of interest from your savings.
- Evaluate your spending habits to reduce unnecessary expenses upfront.
- Set up automatic transfers for your bills so you won't be charged late fees.
- Create a savings goal for a certain amount of money and stick to it.
- Participate in various saving challenges to make saving fun.
- Ditch your credit card for a debit card to limit overspending.
Money Saving Challenges You Should Try In 2024
Now it's time to review the money-saving challenges you came here for. Here are our picks for the best creative ways to save money.
No-Spend Challenge
This challenge is precisely what you think it is. The No-Spend Challenge means that you pick a time frame (a week, a month, three months) and promise to limit your spending to only essential expenses, like your rent, food, utilities, etc.
Many people swear by the "no-spend challenge" because it's both strict and easy to follow simultaneously. You can make a list of things you won't allow yourself to buy and items you're permitted to spend money on.
Most people decide to stop discretionary spending during a month like January when everyone's recovering from the holiday season and staying in, which means this challenge works perfectly.
52-Week Money Challenge
We all know there are 52 weeks in a year. What if you set aside an increasing amount of dollars that's feasible for you each week? That's exactly what the 52-Week Challenge is! Let's say you set aside $10 weekly – that's $520 in your savings account within a year! And many people can set aside a lot more than $10.
If you want to add a fun twist to this 52-week money challenge, you could set aside an amount corresponding to the week's number. So, for week one, you put aside $1. For week number two, you put aside $2, and so on.
If you can, you can put aside more on week number one and keep upping the numbers weekly! Or you can go backward and set aside $52 during the first week of the year and then gradually drop the number! Try the 52-week savings challenge!
Holiday Helper Money Saving Challenge
Christmas is a fun time for friends and family, and everyone loves to find a fantastic present under the Christmas trees. But treating your loved ones with lavish gifts can be expensive!
If you want to be able to give everyone the perfect gift, the Holiday Helper Money Saving Challenge is just the thing for you.
Starting in the first week of January, set aside $20 weekly and put it into a savings account. By the end of November, you'll have saved over $800, more than enough extra cash to crown you the best gift giver in the family!
365-Day Nickel-Saving Challenge
In today's world, only a few people carry cash, especially coins. But the annoying coins you find in your pockets or the bottom of your bag are still valuable currency, which can add up to quite a hefty sum of money!
That's why the 365-day nickel money-saving challenge is so great. Start by putting $0.05 in your piggy bank on day one of your challenge. The next day, put $0.10 into your savings. Then, keep adding a nickel to the previous day’s savings daily.
This money challenge is one of the easier savings challenges to try because the amount of money you're setting aside is tiny, so you won't feel overwhelmed when you have to take that out of your bank account.
Save Every $1 Bill
The Save Every $1 Bill money-saving challenge is self-explanatory because you're putting away the same amount of money every time.
Any time you're paying with cash, and you get a single dollar bill in return, set it aside. It may not seem like much then, but it'll add up during the year.
You can put your dollar bills into an envelope, and once it doesn't fit any more money, you transfer it into your savings account, then start filling up the envelope again!
Weather Savings Challenge
This is quite a unique challenge, best for people living in countries with different times of year instead of a consistent temperature year-round.
The gist of the challenge is to put away money every week, depending on the temperature outside. Say you decide to put away money every Monday. You wake up, and it's 60 degrees outside. So you put away $60 that day. The following Monday, it may be 45 degrees outside. So you put away $45.
With this challenge, you'll never know how much you'll have to set aside every week, so it'll be a fun mystery to look back at your progress by the end of the year! Let's hope it's warm and you end up smashing your savings goals!
The Pantry Challenge
This one's easy! How often do you have to remind yourself that you have food at home and should eat it instead of ordering a pizza or sushi for dinner? This challenge works by restricting how often you eat take-out food.
Instead, you'll save a lot of money by eating all your food at home before going to the grocery store or the local pizza place or ordering something through DoorDash.
Put a positive spin on your pantry, experiment with new food combinations, and save money with the Pantry Challenge!
Round-Up Money Saving Challenge
This saving challenge is excellent for those who use cash when buying something because you’ll add up your spare change until it builds up into something significant.
Say you're buying your weekly groceries, and your total totals $34.32. Round up to the nearest dollar, and you get $35. This means that you put away $0.68 in your piggy bank. If you do this every time you buy something, you're guaranteed to grow your savings quickly.
Paying with cash can also limit your spending overall because watching the money slip away from your wallet is much more apparent than seeing the numbers fall in your bank account.
Some banks and credit unions also offer a feature where your banking expenses are rounded to the nearest dollar and invested, so check in with your financial bank or credit union for more information!
Expense Tracking Challenge
Have you ever stopped to wonder what are you paying your hard-earned money for? This isn't a traditional saving challenge because you don't have to put any money away.
First, open your bank statements from the last year and examine where your money's going. Maybe you pay for one too many subscriptions? Perhaps you could get a reusable water bottle to stop splurging on plastic bottles from the grocery store?
Facing your banking statements will force you to reevaluate your spending habits and allow you to start fresh now that you're aware of your missteps! Make a homemade coffee and face the music as you improve your cash spending!
No Eating Out Challenge
The last of the saving challenges we're recommending is the "no eating out" challenge, which is precisely what it sounds like. Decide on a time frame and stop yourself from eating out.
The average American eats out 5.9 times weekly, which adds up to around $300 every month or $3,500 every year. Imagine what you could do with all of that saved money!
Pick a time to stop eating out, learn a new recipe or two, and watch your savings grow as you try this money challenge!
How to Stay Motivated When Saving Money?
We've already talked about how saving money can be tricky. If you need help staying motivated long-term, you can do a few things to keep motivated and not spend money.
- Set clear and achievable goals.
- Find someone to hold you accountable in your savings journey.
- Celebrate your progress.
- Realize that instant gratification is less important than financial independence.
- Get inspired by others.
Reach Your Money Goals in 2024
Now that you've read about our picks for the best ten money-saving challenges, it's up to you to choose the money-saving challenge that you like best!
It doesn't matter if you decide to take part in the 52-week challenge, the cancellation challenge, any other week challenge, or simply choose to put away a specific dollar amount from time to time; saving money is a challenging journey, and any steps forward you take is progress.
If you're looking for a way to make some money while you try to save money, why don't you try Honeygain? It's an innovative app that allows you to earn money by simply sharing your internet connection.
Here's how it works: download the app, set up your account, and share your unused internet connection with scientists and researchers. They use your data connection to access publicly available information for their projects and studies. And you get paid in return!
