Whether you're saving up for your dream vacation or your dream house or trying to pay off those credit cards, saving up that hard earned cash can be hard.
However the internet has saved the day. Because there are so many fun ways that you can make a game out of saving money.
With the help of a few bloggers and our favorite tool Pinterest, we put together a list of money saving challenges you should try out today.
It is such a great way to get started on your money goals.
15 Saving Challenges to Try Now
Fun Saving Challenges
- No Spend Challenge
- No Spend Challenge: Food and Drink
- Weather Savings Challenge
- 365 Day Money Challenge
- The Penny Challenge
- Spare Change Challenge
- Vices Savings Challenge
What is the $5 Challenge?
How Can I Save $500 in 30 days?
The 52 Week Savings Challenge
How much money do you save in the 52 week challenge?
- $5000 a year challenge
- The Reverse 52 Week Savings Challenge
What is the 100 envelope challenge?
Saving Challenges to Jump Start Your Money Saving Goals
- 26 Week Bi-Weekly Challenge
- 31 Day Money Saving Challenge
- The $1000 Challenge
Fun Saving Challenges
There are so many ways to trick yourself into saving more cash. Sometimes it is as simple as setting a goal and focusing on it (this is my fave book that has helped with the focusing part).
For the rest of us, if you need a bit more of a push check out some of these fun money saving challenges.
And don't be surprised if it turns into a hard to break habit.
Money Saving Bingo
Want a way to save $300 in less than a month?
Get your daubers out. We are going to play bingo.
The way it works is each day you pick an amount to daub or cross out your card. Put that amount in a jar or transfer it to your saving account.
Once your card is blacked out and all cells are daubed (crossed out) you should have saved $300.
A monthly savings challenge is a great way to save cash quickly. You can also double the amounts and end up with $600 in less than a month.
No Spend Challenge
How long do you think you can go without spending any money?
This is actually a fun challenge to try with friends. Challenge each other and see who can go the longest.
The rules are completely up to you. However the only items exempt are necessities such as rent and utilities.
If you are going at it alone start with a week. Then move on to two weeks. And so forth.
Not only will you save a nice amount of money but chances are you will also discover there are things that you don't really need to spend money on in the first place to have an enjoyable life. This is also a good trick to pay off that annoying credit card.
Need ideas on how to create a budget. Check out our guide on how to live on a budget.
No Spend Challenge: Food and Drink
This is a variation on the no spend challenge except that it involves no spending on eating out specifically.
This is exactly how we saved up for some of our first vacations.
The rules are simple. If you like to buy Starbucks for example, go out for drinks with friends, or eat out every so often. Cut this out for a month.
Then every time you would go out take that amount and put it in a savings account. Or in a fun little bank like this one.
For example, I used to buy lunch every day for work. I would average about $10 a day.
So I decided to do a no spend and pack my lunch instead of buying it. Each week I would in turn put $50 in my “vacation fund“.
It was amazing how quickly that money added it up. And now I have it set up as a recurring transfer from my checking to my savings. At this point it is set it and forget it.
Every time we want to go on a trip we go into that account. It's so nice to just have it there without thinking about.
Once you start saving you will be addicted.
Read more about How to Stop Spending Money. And use these tips to save even more.
Weather Savings Challenge
The weather challenged is something new I came across and felt it would be fun to share. The idea is to pick a day of the week and once a week you will save the equivalent of that high or low for the day.
So for examples let's say you pick Monday. Every Monday you will check the recorded high or low for the day and add that amount into your savings.
This could be fun especially if you live in a place that has variable temperatures like the North East of the United States.
In the winter months the deposits will be lower but in the summer they will be significantly higher.
365 Day Money Challenges
The Penny Challenge
Who says you have to have a ton of extra cash to save.
This challenge is such an easy way to save over $600 in one year. Starting on Day 1 you save 1 penny. Day 2 is 2 pennies. And so on. Pop them in of these jars to keep track.
Isn't it amazing how those pennies can quickly add up?
Spare Change Challenge
The spare change challenge is a relatively passive way to save cash for a rainy day or to put towards a vacation.
It is simple. Just drop any loose change into a jar (I love these ones) and keep adding it up.
If you don't really use cash then check with your financial institution. Bank of America for example has a program called “Keep The Change” where you can round up your purchases and the change will be automatically transferred to your savings account. It almost feels like free money.
Vices Savings Challenge
This is similar to the no spend challenge. The goal here is to give up a vice. You decide what that is. So it could be wine, coffee, ice cream.
Whatever it is give up that vice for a month or two or three and then put the money that you would have otherwise spend on that vice in a savings account or a jar. It makes for a great savings plan in so many ways.
What is the $5 Challenge?
The $5 challenge is a fave and one that we do quite often. It is simple. Every time you find yourself in possession of a five dollar bill don't spend it and put in a jar, envelope, box. It is entirely up to you.
You can do this for whatever time frame you like.
We personally do this between trips and will use whatever we have in our pot for something fun. We have easily saved up hundreds doing this. And we hardly miss those $5 bills.
How Can I Save $500 in 30 days?
I love a good monthly money savings challenge. And saving $500 in 30 days is a lot simpler than you think.
Here are two ways that you can give it a go.
The first way starts with $1 on the first of the month and increases by $1 everyday. In the alternative you can do the reverse of this where you start with $30 and go down $1 each day.
Here is another idea that will get you to $500 month. It is the same concept as above where you are saving a set amount of money every day. But the amounts vary by day and are not in consecutive. Pick the one that best works for you.
The 52 Week Savings Challenge
One of the most popular money savings challenges are the 52 week challenge.
These are brilliant and a great way to start a goal at the beginning of the year.
How much money do you save in the 52 week challenge?
You can save anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars to thousands of dollars by doing the 52 week challenge. It is a great way to save a nice chunk of change easily.
There are several ways you can do this challenge however here are a few options that you should consider.
The most common way to do it is to start with saving $1 a week and bump that up a dollar every week until the end of the year.
Here is an example. By the end of the year you will have saved up $1378.
If you are looking for something to start anytime of year of want to try the challenge but in a different way then this version is brilliant.
It works almost like a bingo card. The challenge itself lasts a year however each week you can pick and choose how much you set aside. Once you have crossed off all the boxes, bingo. You now should have $1,469 in the bank or in a cute piggy bank like this one.
If you prefer to know exactly how much you should be setting aside and when then this is a sample of a 52 week money challenge that most people start at the beginning of the year.
$5000 a year challenge
Here is an example of a $5000 challenge.
And if you are looking to save even more this one is for $10,000. How awesome would it be (and feel) to have $10,000 in the bank after a year.
The Reverse 52 Week Savings Challenge
This is my favorite out of all the 52 week savings challenge.
Reason being that you start off putting a larger amount of money in the beginning of the challenge (or when you're most motivated) and by the end the amounts are so small that you just have to keep on going. BTW, this is a great book if you want to keep that motivation going.
The traditional 52 week challenge starts at $1 however the reverse starts at $52 and you deduct a dollar every week with the last week being $1. This 52 week money saving challenge is perfect to keep you motivated.
What is the 100 envelope challenge?
The 100 envelope challenge is a fun way to save over $5000 in a year. It is really to do. Start with 100 envelopes. (Amazon has a ton of cute ones like these.) Label each envelope $1 through $100. Every week you will randomly pick two envelopes and fill the envelopes with the dollar amount on the outside of the envelope.
By the end of the year you should have 100 envelopes with $5050.
Saving Challenges to Jump Start Your Money Saving Goals
Still looking for some more options to save money. Here are a few additional ideas for money saving challenges.
26 Week Bi-Weekly Challenge
If 52 weeks seems like a bit of a stretch for you then why now try a 26 week challenge.
This one will have you saving $5000 in just 6 months.
31 Day Money Saving Challenge
Similar to the 30 day challenge the 31 day challenge involves you saving a certain amount of money everyday for a month.
Here is an example of one that will help you save $500 in a month.
The $1000 Challenge
If your goal is more specific AKA you want to save $1000 then the $1000 challenge is great for you. This specific one is a year long challenge however it is easy enough to do this challenge in 12 weeks as opposed to a year. This is also a great way to get started on that emergency fund.
The hardest part about saving up for something is starting. The second hardest part is not succumbing to the urge to spend what you have saved (this is a great idea if you just can't resist) or just stop.
While saving money isn't always easy there are fun and easy ways to do it. So save that money. Plan that trip. Let's do this.
Give one of these a try and let us know how they worked out for you.
