If you’ve been following along, you might remember that I started a year-long Savings Challenge last March (you can catch up here, here, and here). The end is in sight, and I wanted to share one final update with you!
The original plan was that I would set aside a designated amount of money every week and put it into a special savings account for spending at my discretion, as this was in addition to my regular monthly savings. As the weekly amounts increased, it also grew increasingly harder to find those extra funds outside of my typical budget allowances. I started to look forward to the coming weeks, and I realized that it just wouldn’t be feasible for me to keep up with the plan that was laid out for me based on my income and my monthly budgeting needs.
I really didn’t want to give up on the Challenge, because this had been the most successful I’ve been at saving for quite some time. After some careful thought and a little reorganization, I decided to continue saving in a different way. Instead of having one lump sum that I transferred into my savings account every month, I broke that down very specifically into different categories of savings – funds for unexpected emergencies, vacations, Christmas gifts, etc. Since my original plan was to use what I saved from the Savings Challenge for our big move to a new house, I created a special category just for that. While it wasn’t quite as much, it was still more than nothing, and I was still able to keep up with all of my other financial commitments. I might not have reached the Challenge’s end goal of $1,378, but I came pretty close with a final balance of $975. I feel a lot better spending that money (wisely) knowing that I had saved that with a purpose in mind, and I did what I set out to do.
I think overall, the Savings Challenge made me a better saver. I tried to commit to similar ideas in the past, but none of them seemed as easy as this one, and that’s why I decided to give it a shot. While I may not have stuck to the plan specifically the entire time, I wanted to share my experience to show that there are many different ways to save more money, and I thought the Challenge was a great example of how small contributions can add up over time. I plan on continuing with the new savings plan that I’ve put in place for myself, and I’m pretty excited to watch how that unfolds.
How do you save money? Do you set specific goals for yourself? Tell us more about any similar experiences you’ve had!
