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Starting a money-saving challenge is an excellent way to save extra money, but many people don’t know where to start. These days it’s hard to know where and how to start saving money!
Money challenges help motivate people to save money each month. They can be a fun way to get creative and develop new ways to save.
Most money savings challenges work the same way: you set a goal and then save up for it. It’s money over time, and the more cash you pop in your jar, the more you have in the end!
There are tons of different saving challenges to help you save money. Some people might decide not to eat out for 30 days, while others may only spend $10 per week on groceries.
In this post, we will talk about 17 money-saving challenges, many of which are tried and true by us and people we know!
Table of Contents
Your Financial Goals
A savings goal (or a few goals!) is an essential part of any money-saving challenge.
Commit yourself to save for something, and all the money you save goes towards that goal. It can be anything: starting your retirement, traveling around the world, or getting out of debt.
The possibilities are endless!
Once you decide how much money you’re working toward, the next step is figuring out where you want your savings to be.
We don’t recommend under your mattress! Make sure you pop everything into a good old savings account!
17 Money-Saving Challenges
Money-saving challenges are a great way to get creative about saving money. There are many ways you can save money by giving up or changing just one thing for a set time.
And don’t worry about keeping track of your savings; we have money-saving charts that can help you!
1. Keep Your Change (Spare Change Challenge)
The keep your change challenge is so easy! To start the challenge, all you need to do is collect any spare change lying around in your house or car and deposit them into an empty piggy bank.
You can also use an app to keep your change. An app like Acorns will help you automatically save your change with their Round-Up feature, then invest it for you so you can accrue more money from your savings!
2. 365 Day Money Challenge
In the “365 Money Challenge,” you set aside a certain amount of money per day and increase it by 1 every day after. This challenge is great for kids, as it helps them learn about saving money and counting coins. It can also be a fun way to see how much money you have saved.
For example, you might save a penny on Jan 1, then 2 pennies on Jan 2, and so on for the rest of the year. At the end of the year, you will have $667.95 saved from your pennies!
The best part about the 365 Money Challenge is that there are no limits to how much money you can earn! You don’t have to save just a penny- it could be a dime, quarter, whatever!
3. 52 Week Money Challenge
The 52 Week Savings Challenge involves saving money every week of the year rather than every day.
It is similar to the 365 Money Savings Challenge, but you put in $1 times the week number. So, in the first week, you save $1, in the second week, $2, and so on.
When the 52-week challenge ends, you will have saved $1,378!
Get paid bi-weekly? No problem! Change the 52-week savings challenge to the 26-week one and put two weeks’ savings into the bank account each time instead.
4. No Takeout Month
The No Takeout Month savings challenge is where you save by cooking at home instead of going out to eat for a month. It’s a fun one because you can get your friends and family involved, too!
Use the challenge as motivation to cook different meals that you never knew how to make before. Practice your cooking skills and have fun while doing it!
Also, use a cashback app to help you save even more money on groceries.
5. Save 1% of Income
If you’re looking for a money-saving challenge that can help you meet your goals, this is it.
The 1% Income Savings Challenge will help you work towards meeting your goal by saving just one percent of your income each month.
1% might not seem like a lot, but it can add up over time, and at the end of the year, you’ll be surprised by how much you save. For example, if you make $4,000 per month, you would save $40 each month- that’s $480!
6. No-Spend Challenge
The No-Spend Challenge will help you get into the habit of not spending money unnecessarily. Depending on your budget needs, the savings challenge lasts for a specific amount of time, usually a week or a month.
During that time, you don’t spend money on anything except for groceries and monthly household expenses. That’s right! You don’t purchase unless it is for something essential!
It can be tough to stick to the rules of the No-Spend Challenge, but you can learn to get your spending under control in this money challenge.
7. Holiday Fund Challenge
The Holiday Saving Plan was designed to help you save for Christmas and the holidays!
You can open a new holiday savings account or use your regular savings account and make a commitment to deposit a fixed amount of money each week before the holiday season. This will help you avoid last-minute spending and keep your budget on track, so you don’t have to worry about how you’re going to afford all of those gifts!
Think about how much you usually spend for holidays or set yourself a limit on what you’ll spend (for food or gifts!), and add that up per holiday. Then decide if you’ll save weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly- then you’ll know what to divide your limit by.
8. Dime Challenge
There are a few variations on the Dime Challenge, and you can do whichever one strikes your fancy!
Some people use a 2-liter bottle (worth 10 cents!) as their piggy bank for all their spare change- it could lead to an innumerable amount of savings. Plus, when you finish one and count up what you have, you can start fresh as many times in a year as you want.
Another Dime Challenge is saving all the dimes you come across. But you may not come across too much depending on how you buy stuff, so you can also turn it into saving 10 cents every day and increasing each day just like you do the 365 money-saving challenges.
9. 3 Month Money Challenge
The 3 Month Money Challenge is an excellent money-saving challenge if you want to save up some funds in a short time frame.
The challenge is to save a certain amount over three months- just take your goal and divide by 3. If you want to save $300, that means you need to set aside $100 a month. To save $1,000, you could set aside about $333 a month.
10. Weather Wednesday Challenge
Weather Wednesday Savings Challenge is a great challenge and easy to follow. Each Wednesday, you will tuck cash away depending on the temperature of the day!
If it’s 78 degrees on Wednesday in your location, then put away $78 that week. If it’s 0 degrees, put away any amount ending in zero, like $10 or $100.
But if you live in a hot place and may struggle to save, you can set limits where if you hit over 80 degrees, like say, divide the number in half.
11. 30-Day Challenge
The 30-day money challenge is a way to motivate yourself to save without making it too hard. To get started, you create a 30-day plan of simple things you can do to change your spending.
This is the most flexible plan for saving because it isn’t necessarily about setting aside extra money; it’s about what you need to do to save more.
Some suggestions for simple things you can do to save extra money are:
- Use an app like Honey to find savings and coupons
- Set limits to when or how often you buy coffee or eat out
- Create a budget using traditional paper budgets or an online personal finance app, like Mint or Empower (formerly Personal Capital)
- Using a cashback service such as Ibotta for groceries or Rakuten for store purchases
12. Daily Penny (Or Nickel!) Challenge
You might not think saving one cent would make any difference, and it doesn’t seem like much. But if you do this money savings challenge for 30 days straight, you’ll have more than $10!
There are many ways to do a Daily Penny (or Nickel) Challenge. Some people save their pennies or nickels daily from purchases, or you can set aside a penny or something per day. For example, if it’s Jan 23, you can save twenty-three cents.
13. No Snacks Month
This savings challenge is a great way to break the habit of unhealthy snacking and save money on your grocery bill.
When you join the No Snack Savings challenge, you go without processed snacks for 30 days. The point of this challenge isn’t to eliminate snacks from your diet but to cut back on spending.
This includes chips, cookies, candy bars, and anything else of that nature- but you could still make them yourself since making snacks costs less than buying them.
14. Savings Thermometer
The Savings Thermometer is a fun challenge that will motivate you to save. All you need to do is create a thermometer on a poster and put it somewhere you can see easily.
Set a goal at the top for the amount you want to save and decide on your period to meet your savings goal. As you tuck money away, color up the thermometer up to look like it’s getting full.
You set the time limit, and you decide how much to save- it’s meant to be less stressful with no particular savings rules! You just save where you can and record it to motivate yourself!
15. 100 Envelope Money Challenge
With the 100 Envelope Money Challenge, you take 100 envelopes and label them 1 to 100.
Each day (or whatever period of time you want!), you pick an open envelope at random. Then you put the corresponding amount of money in each envelope and seal it.
This challenge is great because it’s easy to do, and by the end, you’ll have over $5,000 saved!
16. $1,000 Emergency Fund
The $1,000 Emergency Fund Challenge is an excellent approach to build up money for a rainy day.
It can be done in various ways, but the most popular is to save $1,000 in 100 days. This averages out to be around $10 a day. For some people, that’s just skipping buying snacks or their daily coffee for a while.
If you find $10 a day is a lot, you can always break it into smaller savings goals over a longer time frame, like increasing it to 200 days at $5 a day.
17. 30 Day Meal Planning Challenge
The 30 Day Meal Planning Challenge is an excellent way to spend less on your grocery budget. The goal of this challenge is simple: plan and prep your meals and eat at home for 30 days!
It’s a great way to make sure you’re not spending money on unnecessary items and that you’re getting the most out of your groceries! We can even help you by getting you prepped with freezer-friendly recipes.
One way to get ready for a 30-Day Meal Planning Challenge is by subscribing to a meal planning service like $5 Meal Plan.$5 Meal Plan is an awesome service that provides you with a meal plan for 7 days/week, including recipes and grocery lists!
Helpful Money Habits
Eat-In
One of the best ways to save is by eating in. This means cooking your food rather than going out to eat or ordering takeout. Cooking at home can also help you stick with your goals for meeting your money-saving goal, weight loss, healthy living, and more!
Buy Less
Buying less is one of those ways you can meet your savings challenge. One way to buy less is only to buy what you need when you need it. This means that you won’t go out and spend money on things that you don’t need, like clothes, accessories, or electronics.
Save Money On Bills
Do a money-saving challenge negotiating your bills! This frugal living tip is such an easy way to save money!
You can do a few things to get started: first, you can call your cable company or whatever company and simply ask for a reduced rate. It never hurts to ask and negotiate!
You can also use a mobile app like Trim to look at your spending habits and bills. They can find subscriptions you don’t use, cancel them, and negotiate the terms of your bills.
Key Takeaways
These challenges can be tricky, but they are a great way to get your finances in order and help change your life by getting more money into your savings account.
Our research showed that these are the top money-saving challenges to try, and you only have to pick what works best for you and go from there!
So, what are you waiting for? Start saving money today!
