The 52-Week Saving Challenge
In this post, I will review and provide some advise on how to successfully complete the 52-week money saving challenge. Also, we will see the reason why so many people like this challenge.
In general, there are many milestones you can set for yourself when saving money that will help you stay on track and will also show you how to continue even in the roughest times.
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Store your savings
You can start by finding a container to store your savings, for example, some people are using one of those bank envelopes with the zipper on it. In general, everything that can store the physical cash is suitable for a saving container.
Accountability Partner
You may also like to consider recruiting an accountability partner. An accountability partner is someone that will make you responsible to adhere to achieving your goals in saving. An accountability partner could be a loved one such as your mother, sister, husband or a really trustable friend.
Based on past experience, I was not disciplined in achieving my savings goals, so I gave it in an envelope to my mom. So my mom will safely keep my money and she will generally remind me if I really need the money to buy things I desire.
Exercise Self Control
The third step is to control yourself. In order to achieve that, make sure to find somebody you trust, it could be your family or dear friend to hold your “envelope” or your savings.
The general idea here is that your savings are not always available for you to spend, because if you are like me you will most-likely spend them whenever the savings are enough for something I want.
In my personal case, I gave the envelope to my mother. In order to reach my savings, I had to talk it through with her, which most of the time has led to me leaving my desire to spend.
In order to be 100% accurate, make sure that you have one dollar (or whatever your savings rate is) ready by Friday, so when the day comes, you can be ready. Continue doing this all the way to the last week.
Life always gets in your way, I understand but I got you covered. For example, whenever a big holiday comes or there is your best friend’s birthday and you know that you will not be able to make your saving this week, try your best to double deposit the previous week.
This way the money for lets say week 13, for example, will be saved on week 12. Now you can easily manage your money in order to buy the present without interrupting your saving deposits.
If this method seems slow for you to build up, you can try another thing. You can just start in the middle. For example, if you feel confident you can simply start from week 26 and go from there. Calculate the deposits from week 1 to week 26, depending on your own rate and start from week 26.
Maybe you will be able to calculate and add the deposits from week 1 to week 26 and pretend that you have started from the beginning, of course, if there is some capital to start with. By now you probably starting to understand how flexible this method is and how everybody can adjust it as per their own circumstances.
The only important thing is to be consistent. During these 52 weeks not only will you save a lot of money, but you will also learn to manage your finances, which is an essential step for every adult.
Emergency Fund
If you have never heard of an emergency fund here is what it is. In combination with this method, your emergency fund can be a part of your savings. Always keep in mind that life could throw at you unexpected events and costs. In order to overcome this think of 20% of your savings as an emergency fund.
If you have $1000 saved there is always $200 that you can take and spend in case of an emergency. You have to keep in mind that a new tire for your car is not an emergency. If you think about it the budget for your car tires. It is the budget that you are going to deposit to your savings from, yes, but if you manage your money well, you will be able to make your deposit to your savings and buy car tires this month, or week.
If you are a beginner you can try starting with lower deposit rates, until you get comfortable with scaling. Keep in mind that the hardest months to manage are November to January, where several holidays are taking place and additional costs are required.
In order to overcome that, pre-determine and manage your budget respectively. If you do that, for example, the previous month you will have a clear picture of what is about to come and how to handle it.
Saving Method Origins
The 52-week money savings challenge has been originated by Dave Ramsey, and featured in many kinds of USA TV shows, since then. The root of Dave Ramsey’s 52-week savings method was a published article on how to save thousands of dollars in a year’s time.
The article also explained how to save money for the minimum wage, which people could not believe, considering that they were living from paycheck to paycheck.
People were uncertain how a saving method can help them, before understanding that this method works with any kind of income.
The article is suitable even for teenagers that have just started working, which made it suitable for any age group and it was suitable for everybody.
The Saving Method
Here is what the money-saving method looks like. The first week of the year is going to be a week one in which you’re going to save one dollar, in the second week you are going to save two dollars and in total you will have three dollars.
If you skip to the 52-week you will have in total of one thousand three hundred and seventy-eight dollars. The example I gave is aiming at the lower bracket income level, so the higher your income is the higher the amount of money will be at the 52nd week.
Double your savings
You can of course double the savings each week. For example, you can save two dollars the first week and four dollars the second week or even double that. It all depends on your income and the phase you are comfortable with.
Again, this method is all about pushing yourself, and if you think you can manage to save more than the examples in this article, do not hesitate. In order to determine your saving rate, think about what you have to pay for tomorrow, think about next week.
Record your expenses
Create a sheet and write down all your bills and payments for this month, do it for the next month also. Set yourself a route or path each month, get rid of unnecessary purchases if needed, and make sure that you will be able to save the amount you decide each month without skipping.
The majority of people are trying to save money for different things, for example, a new car, a new home, or the newest iPhone. You have to create a clear vision for the future and think about what happens when you have the money. Is it really worth it? Start thinking ahead and try not to touch your savings until you reach the end goal.
Weekly Saving
Let me give you another good example of where you get paid weekly. Let’s say that you have decided to build your savings each Sunday. In order to be 100% accurate make sure that you have one dollar (or whatever your savings rate is) ready by Friday, so when the day comes you can be ready.
Continue doing this all the way to the last week. Life always gets in your way, I understand but I got you covered. For example, whenever a big holiday comes or there is your best friend’s birthday and you know that you will not be able to make your saving this week, try your best to double deposit the previous week.
This way the money for lets says week 13, for example, will be saved on week 12. Now you can easily manage your money in order to buy the present without interrupting your saving deposits.
If this method seems slow for you to build up, you can try another thing. You can just start in the middle. For example, if you feel confident you can simply start from week 26 and go from there.
Calculate the deposits from week 1 to week 26, depending on your own rate and start from week 26. Maybe you will be able to calculate and add the deposits from week 1 to week 26 and pretend that you have started from the beginning, of course, if there is some capital to start with.
By now you probably starting to understand how flexible this method is and how everybody can adjust it as per their own circumstances. The only important thing is to be consistent. During these 52 weeks not only will you save a lot of money, but you will also learn to manage your finances, which is an essential step for every adult.
Conclusion
It will be great to finalize this article with extremely helpful advice from people that have tried this method and succeeded. Do Not save your money on your debit card or PayPal. The reason is simple, the money is secured but they are at your disposal 24/7 for online purchases and the temptation of spending sometimes can be greater than your will to save.
The best way to save your money is to keep them in a trusted 3rd party in order to minimize your accessibility. In general, make these savings hard to reach and spend.
The 52-week savings method is just a simple methodological orientation of how you look at the saving in general. Regardless of the way you save or the method you’re going to follow, I wish you luck!