New Years Goals: Savings

This is post number #2 on New Year Goals. If you are just joining the fun start here.

We try to save money every year, but some how we always manage spend most of it. I recently came across something called the 52 Week Money Challenge. Basically each week you put money into a jar. In week #1 you'd put $1 into it, week #2 $2, Week #10 $10. Week #52 $52. In the end you have $1,378!!! We have our chart taped onto a mason jar and cross off the week once we put it in.

Sorry for coloring, printer was out of ink...

The post where I found this didn't credit the original person so I have no idea who came up with this idea, but I love it! So simple and can be changed to fit your needs. My husband works with Schools so we have no income during the summer, we may be putting it on hold during those months or instead of increasing just do $20 a week. Is more than $20 too much for you a week? Just stick with $20 a week. You still end up with over $800.

I saw someone suggest doing it backwards so you don't have the larger deposits in December with Christmas. If you are like us we are still recovering a little from Christmas so we are happy it's just a few bucks. We also are thinking you don't have to go in order. For example, this is week 2 for us so we'd be putting in $2. We rarely have cash (going to make this a challenge) so I had to withdraw money from our account. Instead of putting in $2 we put in $5 and crossed off weeks 2 and 3. Now we don't have to worry about it another week, or finish a week early. I think the important thing is to put in something each week.

This is a perfect way to save up for something. Can you say Christmas?!?! My mom always said, "Why shop for Christmas only in December? I don't make any more money in December than the rest of the year." If anything you make less because of that days or week off you get because of the holiday.

Here is how I made mine. I took the chart I found here and adjusted it so it will fit on a quart size mason jar. You can get my adjusted version here. Look at the money building up already!

Do you have any money saving tips and tricks? What works for you?


Happy Saving!
~CJ