Easily Saving Money with This 52-Week Challenge

Last week, I read an article on Girlboss about how millennials struggle saving money and they offered insight on a 52-week challenge that guarantees you save $1,378 at the very least through-out an entire year. After reading it, I wanted to learn more about it to give you all the details and this is what I found:

Millennials lost trust during the recession

Millennials hear often that they won’t be able to afford childcare, own a home, or comfortably retire at a reasonable age, so it makes sense that they would aggressively save for the future.

Millennials are saving more than their parents

“The number of millennials reporting having any savings at all has increased in the five years that Bank of America has conducted the survey. Millennials with $15,000 or more in savings jumped to 47% this year, up from 2015.” Fortune

But, Americans traditionally don’t know how to save

A GoBankingRates survey, which asked people how much money they had in their savings accounts in August 2017, showed that 57% of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings.

SCARY.

I’m particularly big on saving money. Ever since I started working full time after graduating college, I’ve been saving. Right now, since I live at home with my parents, I literally save the amount I would pay in rent if I were to rent a 1 bedroom apartment in the city. I don’t really think about it as a week to week savings strategy, I just picked a monthly range I wanted to save and take it out of my account automatically every beginning of the month. yes, I’m a bit extreme but that’s the only way I can be consistent with my savings.

If you are not the best at saving money because you want to have lots of fun and go to fancy dinners and all that, THAT’S OK! Just know and be very clear that at some point, you will need to save more for a comfortable retirement. I know we should live in the present, but caring (not obsessing) about our future and that of our families is the responsible thing to do.

Here’s the 52-Week Challenge To Help You Save Money:

Start by saving $1 and increase the amount by $1 every week for 52 weeks. If you start this week, move $1 to your savings account, next week transfer $2, the third week transfer $3… the idea here is that you get comfortable with letting go of these dollars. By week 52, you will be ok with transferring $52.

Give this saving money challenge a try and hopefully next year or half way thru, you’ll be ok with transferring 20% of your income to your savings account.. It’s all about making the right compromises.