How Savings Challenges can help you save money

With Christmas around the corner, I am looking at which savings challenges can help you save money in time for the festivities or anytime of the year. I am a sucker for saving money and I am always encouraging those around me to think of more ways they too can save money for things that are important to them. Instead of always relying on credit cards to pay for any emergencies, you can rely on the money you have set aside to pay for life’s surprises both good and bad. Ever since I became debt free, I vowed never to go back to relying on credit card or payday loans to live my life instead if I don’t have money I won’t spend what I don’t have.

The office of national statistics released a report in December 2019 which showed that Great Britain had a total household debt of £1.28 trillion in April 2016 to March 2018, of which £119 billion (9%) was financial debt and £1.16 trillion (91%) was property debt (mortgages and equity release). These are staggering numbers that humbles me in more ways than one and I want to ensure apart from my mortgages I am completely consumer debt free and I have been learning which savings challenges can help you save money. The beautiful thing about these savings challenges is that you can start as little as £1 or even smaller, you just need to have a goal and work from there.

Disclaimer – I am not a financial advisor

How Savings Challenges can help you Save Money

If you are looking for simple ways to save money then let me recommend this post from Bee Money Savvy as it is a great post with good tips on some of the savings challenges you can use to save money. I personally have done the 52-week challenge which I used an app called Plum (affiliate link) which automated the process so I did not need to think about. I have not been that successful with ‘no-spend’ challenges because something always seems to come up and makes me resent the challenge so I find something else that works for me. Another challenge from Emma’s list that I have tried is the spare challenge which I am currently following to save some money to spend on New Year’s Day.

In this post I want to share a few ways on how savings challenges can help you save money, for many people saving money is often a struggle and an extreme stretch of the budget but it doesn’t have to be. Check out some tips below and how savings challenges can help you save money.

• Automate the process – if you make the process easy and seamless then this will make the entire process easy to manage and it won’t lead to you resenting the savings challenge.
• Start small – if you want to save £500 then break it down into smaller chunks by possibly following the 1% rule (save 1% of the total goal a month or week i.e £5 or £50).
• Create a budget – budgets are so underrated, it makes sense to have one so you can have a holistic view of your finances so you know where you can save money or cut back on.
• Track your progress meticulously – I am currently doing the spare change challenge and I track it daily. My spare change challenge requires me to take all the spare change from my three current accounts and send the totals to my specific Monzo pot.
• Start again – there are times when we have no choice but to use up the little we have saved, its ok, use it and then start again, do not be disheartened.
• Make it fun – don’t be too hard on yourself or too strict, you need to make the savings challenge fun and everyday you want to save more and more. This is something I do all the time as I get bored easily so I make my savings challenges fun.

Once you have done all these, choose which savings challenge you want to follow and slowly but surely you will see progress. Not every savings challenge will work for everyone so make sure you tweak every challenge you do to fit into your life. Don’t look at what others are able to save, daily, weekly or even monthly, focus on what you are able to save and do it consistently until you reach your goal and possibly start another savings challenge.

Do you have any savings challenges that you follow and have yielded great results for you? Share them in the comments below.