Looking for easy money saving challenges that can help you boost your savings and reach your financial goals fast? Keep reading to find out what the easy money-saving challenges are.
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Everyone wants more money. We all know that we probably should save a little bit more. Well, make this task an easy one by turning this into a game.
As humans, we all love a good game. Saving money on its own is not quite fun, BUT you can change that by using these money-saving challenges.
Changing the way you save money can truly affect the amount of money you save. I promise you’ll end up saving A LOT more than you may think by simply using these savings challenges. You’re going to end up saving money you would have easily spent otherwise.
Let’s give every dollar a job- all the way down to the penny! Even your pennies play a role in this.
This post is all about money saving challenges.
Easy Money Saving Challenges:
1. Save Your Coins Challenge
It’s as easy as it sounds! The best way to get started with this challenge is to convert to the cash envelope method. Every time you spend cash and get change back put it in a piggy bank.
YEP! We’re going all the way back to our young days and bringing out the piggy banks again.
I’m telling you right now, you’ll notice just how fast coins add up.
I highly recommend you make this a physical thing because if you leave your “change” in your bank account, it won’t be separated from your other money.
When you put your coins to the side and let them keep stacking up every time you get change, you will notice just how much money you would have thrown away if you failed to get your change back.
You know how people say, “Keep the change”? … Well not me anymore. Nope. I need my change, please.
Below is a spreadsheet that I use to keep track of my challenges. Every time my saving challenges equal $20, I deposit the $20 in the bank and put it towards one of my priorities. Personally, I alternate between 1st priority and 2nd every time.
The thing is, exchanging your coins for dollars easily adds $20 to your wallet- $20 that came from pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. It’s $20 that seemingly appeared out of nowhere because let’s be real, you didn’t really care about the coins the minute they went from dollars to coins.
Adding up and exchanging your coins is fun! It’s also fun when you add the amount the coins equal to your savings accounts or towards paying off debt. It feels good to see things work!
2. The $1 Savings Challenge
This is another one on the list of easy money-saving challenges.
Every time you get a dollar bill back in change, add it to a separate envelope and save them up. For those who are looking for saving challenges for low-income, these are perfect examples! You can almost always spare that one dollar.
Like, if you went to the store and spent $4 and paid with a $5 bill, the $1 in change goes straight to the challenge envelope.
At the end of the week, month, or even year go to the bank and deposit all of the dollar bills into your account. You can then use that money and add it to any savings account or use it to pay off debt.
Personally, I wait until the envelope reaches $20. As soon as I have 20 dollar bills, I go to the bank and deposit them. After, I either pay off the debt or add the $20 to my savings account.
I’m currently saving for a house. I’m trying to save as much money as possible, but I don’t make enough to fully fund another savings account for my house.
I can, however, add my leftover change turned dollars into it or the $20 from the $1 challenge to reach my goal faster.
Funnily enough, it’s working! The only reason I was able to start a savings account labeled “House Investments” was because of the $20 saved up from this challenge.
I’ve been able to add $20 two times within one month. It’s $40 that never would have gone towards a house in the first place otherwise, so it feels good!
Savings Challenge Tips:
1. Set a goal
In order for the saving challenges to really stick, you need to have a goal behind them. This doesn’t necessarily mean having a monetary goal.
Your goal could simply be to put more money aside for vacations, Christmas shopping, college funds, paying off debt, or giving money back to yourself.
Most of my dollar bills collect after I buy groceries using cash. Sometimes I end up with four dollar bills left. I mean, $4 can go a long way in the grocery store, but it’d also be nice to watch your $1 Savings Challenge envelope grow. Decisions!
But now at least you’re thinking about where every dollar is going instead of mindlessly spending money.
It’s important to set a monetary goal as well though. It doesn’t have to be large. As I mentioned earlier, I only aim for $20. Once I get that, the euphoria of depositing the money and moving it around is nice!
After getting $20, I restart the goal and let the process continue. This is a never-ending process.
In the future, I may save the dollars and wait longer before depositing, but as of now, I like the act of going to the bank. I feel like I am taking action toward saving money- even if it’s only $20.
20 one dollar bills look like a lot of money when it’s all stacked up.
2. Try the Cash Envelope Method
How do you know how much cash to withdraw? Do you have a set budget for your spending or are you just spending? Genuinely curious!
Help yourself out with these saving challenges by budgeting and knowing exactly how much money you actually have to work with.
The cash envelope method basically is a system that consists of cash money being organized within different envelopes based on different categories.
For example, you can have a category for groceries. Naturally, you should also have an envelope labeled groceries and proceed to take out exactly how much cash you have decided will be your limit for said category either within the week or month.
Read on: How to Create a Monthly Budget
3. Keep Track of Everything
There are several ways you can keep track of your saving challenges.
You can print out this free printable and mark or color it every time you add a dollar bill to the envelope. It’s a good visual way to see your progress throughout the challenge.
In regard to keeping track of your coins, you can get this piggy bank below from Amazon. It counts the change for your convenience!
If you want something a bit more discreet, you can go with a decorative piggy bank. I have the pineapple one below, but you can use whatever you’d like to hold your change.
In addition to keeping track of your coins, you also need to keep track of how many times you deposit one-dollar bills. For this, I find it easier to use a Google Spreadsheet.
In fact, the spreadsheet I use has every envelope I have. There’s a column for how much I put in the envelope versus how much is in there currently.
You can grab yourself a copy of the Google Spreadsheet I use and add in your own envelopes and money stuff. It’s below!
These printables and spreadsheets are all free! You just need to enter your email and the free resources will go straight to your inbox so you can start using them IMMEDIATELY!
In Closing,
Remember to have fun as you start your saving challenges. The more you hold yourself accountable to maintaining the savings challenges, the more you’ll play the game and reap the benefits!
Saving money doesn’t have to be so unattractive. Make it fun by making it tailored to you and your goals.
If you’re interested in seeing my personal money savings goals, consider signing up for the Selfie Saturday newsletter below! It comes out every Sunday.
Happy Saving!
