Have you fallen off and given up on your 2024 resolutions yet? Whether you have or not, we have an easy challenge for you to follow, even if the year is already close to one month old. In fact, it’s a good idea to start this one now to get back on track in case you’ve already failed your other resolutions or if you spent most of January paying off holiday bills.
What is it? A savings challenge where you save $1 in the first week, $2 in the second, and so on. By the end of the year, you’ll have saved $1,378 (not counting interest). That’s it! I bet it’s easy for anyone to implement, even kids who have no jobs but rely on parental allowance or cash made from doing chores.
If you want something more challenging, you can double it by starting with $2 in the first week, adding $4 in the second week, $6 in the third week, and so forth until you add $104 in week 52, saving a total of $2,756.
Being consistent for 52 weeks may seem like a lot for some people, even if the money needed each week is relatively small. But if you think of it in terms of this being a one-year goal, it may make things easier to implement. Now, some may opt for a different approach, where they have a final figure in mind and work backward from there. For example, you may decide that you want to have $2K by the end of the year—for a January vacation, new renovation work to the house, etc. You then take that and divide it by 52 weeks, and the result is around $38 per week. To make things easier, go ahead and automate that through your bank, where it goes straight to a savings account.
This challenge is a good example of breaking down a big project or objective (saving a relatively large amount) into small and manageable tasks. Imagine being told to save $2K within a short period, like a few weeks or a month, and most would not be able to do it. But given enough time and managed in small chunks, the challenge suddenly becomes possible.