Three money-saving challenges to save you up to $1,475 in a year

AS Americans age – it can become increasingly difficult to save money. Saving money is important because it helps protect you in the event of a financial emergency including surprise car or house repairs, and medical bills. Most importantly, saving money can help reduce your financial stress, provide you with a greater sense of financial freedom, and allow you to meet future goals. Below we reveal three money-saving challenges that will make putting away money easy and fun.

1. The “pay yourself when you make a money mistake” challenge

The first challenge you can try this year is the “pay yourself when you make a money mistake” challenge. This challenge is a great way to balance out financial errors, and it is quite simple. Every time you do something financially foolish you can put $5 – or another amount – in a savings account. The term financially foolish can be quite broad, so you should write out a list of things that you consider to fall under that category. For instance, one of them can be forgetting to pay your credit card bill. This challenge also will bring some awareness to your financial lifestyle. At the end of the year, if you have a lot of money saved, it means that you made more than a few financial mistakes – causing you to reevaluate your choices. On the other hand, if you do not have a ton of money saved, you can feel great about how financially responsible you are.

2. The holiday gift challenge

Everyone knows that the holidays are the most expensive time of year; yet, it seems people are surprised by how much they spend. This past holiday season Americans spent more than $6billion on just Christmas trees, according to Useline. But, there is a way you can prevent the holidays from getting the best of your wallet – and this is known as the holiday gift challenge. The holiday gift challenge will allow you to put money away for the holidays throughout the year. This way you do not have to put items on credit cards or overspend. All you have to do is contribute $5 or $10 for any other amount of your choosing every week to an interest-bearing savings account. So, if you were to put away $15 each week for 45 weeks, you would have $675 already to spend on holiday gifts, decor, and travel. Plus, you’ll get a little interest in your savings. According to Bankrate, the national average interest rate for savings accounts is 0.06% currently.

3. The “trim 1% of your salary” challenge

Finally, the last challenge you can try this year is the “trim 1% of your salary” challenge. The name of this challenge may sound misleading, as you are actually trimming your budget not your salary. But, let’s say you make $80,000 every year – meaning 1% of that is $800. So, this challenge would require you to trim your annual budget by $800. One of the easiest ways to start cutting your annual costs is by looking at subscription services and seeing which ones you can cut down on.

Other money-saving challenges

If these challenges are a little too aggressive for you, there are some other ones that you can try that don’t require you to put away so much money. For instance, you could try the 52-week challenge. For example, on week one you would put away $1, and on week two, you put away $2.\ Every week after that, you would continue to increase the dollar amount by $1. For example, your final deposit should be $52 on week 52. Meaning at the end of the year you should have more than $1,300 in the bank. The next one is even simpler. All you have to do is put away a dollar a day for a year. While this savings challenge only amounts to $365, it does help you build a better long-term savings habitat.