52 Week Money Challenge [With Printable]
Reading Time: 6 minutes Do you need a serious plan for saving money? I’ve got a 52-week money challenge that will make all the difference.
What you’ll love about this challenge is how easy it is and how simple it is to customize it for your life. Try it out, and you’ll find that you can start saving money, maybe for the first time.
Grab your copy of the 52 Week Money Challenge here.
What’s the 52-Week Money Challenge Anyway?
The 52-week money challenge is a plan to save a specific amount of money each week for an entire year. It’s a long process, but it isn’t complicated.
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Basically, you decide how much money you want to save, then divide it by 52. That’s how much you need to save each week. By the end of the year, you’ll have met your savings goal.
Is the 52 Week Challenge Worth it?
Yes, it is definitely worth it to try out this challenge. First of all, it makes saving money into a game.
If you’ve always struggled to save, having fun with saving can change your entire outlook. As you compete with yourself to see how well you can do with saving each week, you’ll enjoy the process and reach your goal.
Next, it sets an attainable goal. If you looked at the ending amount of how much you’ll save, you might think it’s impossible or at least very difficult. But because you break down your savings into very small weekly amounts, you can easily attain what you’re working towards.
Last, this challenge can really help you make better financial habits. It’s not just good for saving. Doing this challenge also helps you to learn discipline with your money, and you’ll think about the future instead of just the present as it relates to your finances.
Does the 52 Week Money Challenge Work?
This all sounds pretty great, but does it really work? Are you actually able to save money?
The answer is truly up to you. But this challenge makes saving easy, and if you stick with it, you’ll end up with a good amount of savings, and the challenge will work.
The challenge makes saving your money fun. It also uncomplicated saving by allowing you to save up over time. This simple yet effective approach really allows you to make an impact on your finances.
How Much Money Do You Save in the 52-Week Challenge?
Now that you know it works, how much money will you actually save with this challenge? Over the period of an entire year, you’ll save up $1378 if you’re following the standard challenge guidelines. Here’s the breakdown of how you’ll save this.
How to Do the 52-Week Money Challenge?
How do you do the 52-week money challenge? There are actually various ways you can complete this challenge. Here you’ll find the standard way to do the challenge, as well as other ideas if you want to save in a different way or have a different paycheck schedule.
1. 52-Week Money Challenge
The traditional 52-week money challenge starts off easy. You begin by saving $1 in the first week and $2 in the second and increase the amount by a dollar each week. The very last week, you’ll save $52.
The benefits are it’s very easy to remember how much to save each week, and you can also start this challenge any time of year. You don’t have to wait for January or even the first of the next month. Instead, you can just pick a day of the week to save and start right away.
2. Reverse 52-Week Money Challenge
If you would rather get the more difficult parts of saving out of the way, you can do the reverse 52-week money challenge.
This one begins with the highest amount you’ll save. You save $52 in your first week, then $51, and so on. Your last week, you’ll save $1.
The reverse method can work really well for people who like to start savings challenges at the beginning of the year. You can do the more challenging part while your resolution is fresh. In addition, you’ll save more at the beginning of the year and less at the end.
This can be helpful because the end of the year tends to be more expensive, with holidays and presents to plan for.
Using the reverse method is a practical way to complete the challenge easily.
3. Random 52-Week Money Challenge
What if you want to keep things more interesting? You can try the random 52-week money challenge. You’ll still save the same amount, but how you save will be different.
To do this version of the challenge, put the amounts $1-$52 in a jar. Each week, draw an amount, and that’s what you save. This method is a great idea if you often get bored with challenges because the amounts always change. You’ll have variety, which could be helpful.
Plus, it doesn’t leave all the weeks with the largest amounts close together. This allows you to break up your savings and make the big amounts more manageable.
4. Double 52-Week Money Challenge
If you’re determined to save a lot more than just $1378, you can double up on the savings and save twice as much money in the same amount of time. Do this by doubling the amounts, starting with week 1. Save $2 your first week, $4 your second, and so on.
By the end of this double-money challenge, you’ll have $2756. This works really well for people with extra income or those who have very large savings goals they’re working towards.
I’d recommend this if you’re saving for a house down payment, something that happens once a year like back-to-school shopping or holidays, or you want to boost your emergency fund.
If you really want to save up as much as possible and you can afford it, you might also try tripling the savings. Start with $3, then $6, and so forth. In the end, you’ll save $4,134. Not bad if you really want to jump-start some of your financial goals.
Obviously, you could keep going with this as much as you want, saving 4 or 5 times as much if your budget allows. You get to decide what works best for you!
5. Bi-Weekly 52-Week Money Challenge
If you get paid biweekly, then saving every week may not make sense for you. However, you can still easily complete this challenge.
Start with saving $3 during the first week. Then in week 3, save $7. Every other week, continue to add $4 to the amount you save.
The challenge will still take you a year, and you’ll save the same amount of money. It will just be broken down in a different way.
The 52-week money challenge is a fun way to save money and you can customize it to suit your needs.
The 52-week money challenge does not have to be a one size fits all way to save. You can be pretty creative with this and save any amount you want, in whatever order you want.
Whether you work a job that pays biweekly or even monthly, or if you want to save different amounts of money each week to keep things interesting, this savings challenge can work for you. Use this printable to help stay motivated.
It’s also fun, as you see your savings grow, and look forward to gaining more money in your account as the year goes on. It makes a game out of saving, which automatically makes not spending all your money sound like a better idea.
Remember as you save that it’s easy to get back on track the next week if you forget. You can also start this challenge any week of the year.
And remember to make this money challenge work for you. It can be done any way you want to achieve your goal. The main point is that you end up saving money and gain great new money habits to help you throughout your life.
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