Sticking to your budget and saving money is a worthy goal. It can even be one with a great payoff at the end. However, it can also start to feel like a long trek at times. This can be particularly true if you have kids, and you feel like you’re always having to tell them no. There are different ways to combat this sense of weariness, including teaching kids about money . Bringing them in on some of the budgeting and letting them choose how to spend a certain amount of the disposable income, with full understanding that buying one thing can mean that buying a different thing may not be possible. Another way to keep your motivation up is with budget challenges. these make the process more satisfying, more fun or both. The great thing about challenges is that they also give you a clear sense of the extent to which even small efforts can add up and make a difference.
4 Money Saving Challenges
Reduce Your Debt
Everyone would like to be debt-free, yet somehow actually sending off that payment each month doesn’t exactly feel satisfying. In fact, you may feel resentful. That’s especially true if you feel like you’re paying and paying and the amount you owe doesn’t seem to be going down. There are a few ways to address this. First, see if you can change the terms of your payment. That might seem unlikely given that you may feel like you don’t have any options as the person who owes money. However, there may be some options available. If you are paying off student loans, NaviRefi student loan refinancing might offer you a payment plan that fits your budget better, either with lower interest rates, lower monthly payments, or both.
Look for credit cards that offer lower interest rates on balance transfers to pay off those types of debts. You may be able to refinance other debts as well, such as your car loan. Next, make a plan to focus on one debt at a time, paying only the minimum on the others. Once you have paid off the first, you can apply that amount plus the minimum to the next one in line. In this way, the amount that you are paying increases more and more. How do you make this a fun challenge? Set goals for yourself and reward yourself along the way. You can also use the money in any of the below challenges and apply them to your debt. Choose interesting investments to put your money toward when you have achieved a debt-free status.
Weekly Savings Challenge
Choose a certain amount of time, whether it’s 26 or 52 weeks if you can swing it, 15 weeks if you’re living on a tight budget currently. In the first week, set aside the amount of money equal to the total number of weeks left or whatever number you have chosen. The following week, save the amount corresponding to the number of weeks left, so either $51, $25, $14 or whatever matches the remaining amount. You’ll be putting less aside each week but watching your stash of money grow more and more.
Continue this until you get to the end. Even with the 15-week limit, you’ll have more than $100 at the end of it. You can put this toward a debt, put it away in savings, invest it or use it to buy something you really want or need. Of course, you could also do this same challenge in reverse over the course of a year, which would end with more than $1,300 saved.
The Daily Nickel Challenge
If you feel overwhelmed by the idea of trying to set aside $52 or even $26, what about a nickel? In the daily nickel challenge, you start by putting aside just five cents and add another five cents each day. If you do this for 365 days, the last amount you’ll set aside will be $18.40. You’ll have a total of more than $3,000.
The Bill (or Coin) Save
There are a lot of variations on this, and the one you choose will vary depending on your budget. This one will be somewhat familiar to anyone who routinely sets change aside and adds up the total a few times a year. Choose a denomination and each time you get that back in change, you put it aside. You might choose $1 or $5 bills over the course of a year, six months or a few weeks. If that strains your budget, consider doing it with quarters. It can be gratifying to watch the value increase, especially when you’ve chosen a denomination that you could easily spend without thinking about it if you weren’t engaged in the challenge.
