Finances have been - and will continue to be - tight over the next 12 months and many of us would like to try and put money aside for a range of different reasons.
You could be looking to boost your emergency fund, prepare for a big life milestone such as getting married or saving towards a house deposit.
Whatever your reason, it's hard to do - particularly over recent years as our monthly budgets have been tightened.
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One way many have managed to build a cash pot is by committing to a savings challenge. These give you a map of how much you should be putting away and when in order to build a cash pot.
Here we have listed a range of different savings challenges you could take on this year.
This one requires you to put some cash away five days each week. You start by saving £1 on Monday then increase this amount by £1 a day until Friday - so £2 on Tuesday, £3 on Wednesday, £4 on Thursday and £5 on Friday. In total, you would save £15 a week and over the year, this adds up to an impressive £780. If you only do half of this challenge or do it every other week, you would still save £390 by the end of the year.
Monday to Sunday savings challenge - £1,456
This one is a harder version of the Monday to Friday challenge, as it includes every single day of the week.
The principle is the same, so you save £1 on Monday and then increase this amount by £1 a day - but this time, you go all the way through to Sunday when you save £7. You would save £28 each week through this challenge, which would add up to £1,456 by the end of the year. If you complete half of it, you would put away £728.
365 Day Savings Challenge - save £366
This likely is the simplest challenge to take on as it requires you to put away some money every single day of the year. You can choose how much you can save each day and repeat that throughout the year. So if you choose to put away £1 a day then you will come out with £365 by the end of the year - however, 2024 is a leap year with the extra date of February 29 - so this year you could save £366.
If you wanna go big or go home and you choose to put away £5 a day then you could end up with a cash pot worth £1,80 by the end of the year.
1p savings challenge - £671
This challenge is another daily savings challenge but this one starts with putting away 1p and adding an extra penny each day throughout the year. So on January 1, you put away a single penny into a savings account - you can always put it into a jar if you want to be a little old school - and then on January 2 you put away 2p, and on January 3 it's 3p and so on.
Finally, on the final day of the year, you would transfer over £3.65 which will give you an eventual total of £667.95. However, in 2024, the leap year makes it a little as on the final day of the year you will be putting £3.66 into your savings pot. Due to this extra day, your savings total will be £671.61.
You can also do this one in reverse too - so on January 1, you put away £3.66 and do down from there. This approach means you will be putting less money away at the end of the year in December when you may need it most.
52 week savings challenge - save £1,378
With this challenge, you increase the amount you save by £1 each week. So the first week in January you would save £1, then the second week you put away £2, all the way to the final week of December where you save £52.
The most you could potentially save is £1,378 if you complete the challenge - this doesn't change with the leap year in 2024. If you don't make it all the way, you could potentially build up a savings pot worth £351 if you commit for six months.
You can also adapt this challenge and make it 26 weeks instead. This would be ideal for someone who is paid fortnightly. The end saving outcome is the same but how it works is a little more complicated.
The idea is that you start on week two and save £3 (so that’s the £1 from week one, and the £2 from week two), and then in week four, you’ll save £7 (week three and four). This may make it harder to follow, but it can help spread out your savings. If you are going to do this one you may want to make a plan of how much you need to put away each time to help you stick to it.
£5 savings challenge - save £6,890
The fiver challenge is an ambitious one and may suit someone who is saving for a milestone. The £5 saving challenge involves increasing the amount you put away by £5 each week. So on the first week of January, you'll save £5, on the second you put away £10, on the third week it'll be £15 - all the way up to week 52 at £260. If you complete this challenge, you could save an impressive £6,890 by the end of the year. If you make it halfway you still would put away a sizable cash pot worth £1,755.
But know that this savings plan is effective, and it can help you sock away more than a thousand dollars in a year — $1,378 to be exact. You could build up even more if you put the funds in a high-yield savings account. Doing the challenge takes commitment, but it's easy to start.
To begin, gather 100 envelopes and sequentially number them $1 through $100. On day one, you'll place $1 in envelope one. On day two, you'll add $2 to envelope two, and so on. Place each envelope in a safe place, and by the end of the challenge, you'll have saved $5,050.
Key takeaways. The 100-envelope challenge can make it fun to dedicate more cash to savings. Using envelopes labeled 1 to 100, you could set aside more than $5,000 over 100 days. If you can't afford to stash that much, you could halve the amount of cash you set aside or stretch out the number of days the challenge lasts ...
The 365-Day Penny Challenge: With this challenge, people make a daily savings deposit and increase their deposit by a penny a day. At the end of a year, they have $667.95 of savings.
The goal of the Challenge is simple: save $100 in a 30-day time period through a series of gradually increasing deposits. November has 30 days so every day is a savings day. As shown in the picture below, daily savings deposits start at $1 a day for five days followed by $2, $3, and $4 each for five days.
If you save $100 every two weeks for a year, you will have a total of $2,600 [1]. Here's the breakdown: There are 52 weeks in a year, and if you save every two weeks, you will save 26 times in a year. Each time you save $100, you will accumulate a total of $2,600 over the course of the year.
You can save over $5,000 in just over three months with the 100 envelope challenge. It works like this: Gather 100 envelopes and number them from 1 to 100. Each day, fill up one envelope with the amount of cash corresponding to the number on the envelope. You can fill up the envelopes in order or pick them at random.
Evaluate income and expenses. To make room for saving, you'll need a meticulous budget that outlines all your sources of income and all your expenditures. ...
The 100-envelope challenge is pretty straightforward: You take 100 envelopes, number each of them and then save the corresponding dollar amount in each envelope. For instance, you put $1 in “Envelope 1,” $2 in “Envelope 2,” and so on. By the end of 100 days, you'll have saved $5,050.
Match each week's savings amount with the number of the week in your challenge. In other words, you'll save $1 the first week, $2 the second week, $3 the third week, and so on until you put away $52 in week 52.
Saving over $1,000 in a month may sound really hard, especially if you aren't used to saving money. The 30-Day Savings Challenge helps you to gradually save up the money to reach your goal of $1,000. On the first day, you are only saving $5! Yep, that's right, only $5! I know you can hit that goal!
The 52-Week Savings Challenge helps you to gradually save up the money to reach your goal of $10,000. This $10,000 Savings Challenge Printable can serve you for so many purposes, such as paying off debt, setting it aside for a house down-payment, taking a vacation, increasing your emergency fund and much more.
It's called a challenge, but the process is quite simple. You get 100 empty envelopes and write the numbers 1 to 100 on them. Then each day, for 100 days, randomly choose an envelope. Whatever number is on the front of the envelope you select for a given day, you put that amount of money into the envelope.
The idea behind this challenge is to divide your savings goal into 100 parts and save a set amount each day for 100 days. To get started and do this the analog way, you will need 100 envelopes, a pen, and a container to store your envelopes.
For anyone trying to improve their savings in 2024, the 52-week money challenge is a simple and effective way to stay on track. And at the end of the year, you'll have $1,378 extra dollars to bulk up your emergency savings or put toward a savings goal, such as a vacation fund or a down payment on a home.
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