What if I told you that saving hundreds—if not thousands—of pounds in a single year could be as simple as a
"Biweekly money-saving challenge" for low-income earners as
just following a few fun, powerful saving challenges?
Well, stay tuned, because that is exactly what we are about to do! Hey guys!
We're going to be running through six smart way biweekly money-saving challenges
of the best savings challenges to help you save money,
no matter what your low income is or how much you're looking to save…
They are all super easy, and they could make a massive difference to your ability to budget your money.
But before we get into them, make sure to check out "money-saving challenge"
ideas and comment for loads more of the very best money-saving tips.
So first up, we are going to look at what is probably one of my favorite ways to save money,
because it is one of the most accessible, although you do not have a lot of spare cash—and that is
the 1p Challenge, which alone could save you over £650 in just a single year.
Biweekly money saving challenge:
The 1p Challenge - also known as the Penny Saving Challenge - the £1 Saving Challenge,
and several other easy money-saving challenges that will help you save thousands this year:
we're bringing them all for you.
Take a look at our 1p Challenge guide,
which contains a free printable sheet to follow your savings on:
The 1p Challenge works well.
if you can start it on the first day of the year because it involves saving a little bit of money every day
for a whole year. But to be honest, as long as you do it for 365 days, the end result is the same,
so it doesn't really matter when you start.
Now, as the name suggests, you start by saving 1p on day one, which is pretty simple...
Then on day two, you save 2p; on day three, you save 3p, and so on.
By the end of the year—so that's day 365 in a non-leap year—you'll be saving £3.65,
which is roughly the cost of a meal deal, and that is the most you'll ever have to save in a single day.
But this all adds up, and by the time you put in your final payment for the year,
the total amount you'll have saved is £667.95. And in a leap year, it's even higher, at £671.61.
You can be flexible with the rules too,
so if you find you usually have more money at the start of the year than at the end, you can just flip
the whole thing around.
So on day one, you save £3.65, on day two you save £3.64, and then on day 365, at the end of the year,
you only have to save 1p.
This is such a popular way to save money.
there are loads of resources out there to help you track your savings—and we actually
have a 1p Challenge chart that we've linked to in the description below,
with a separate version for leap years too, so definitely use that to keep track.
Or, if you have a Monzo account, they've even sorted a way to do it automatically using the If This,
Then That app, where you link your account to it, choose which pot you want to put your savings into,
and then it'll do it all for you every day.
And I'll say this a few times about the other challenges too,
but make sure you're putting all of your savings into a high-
interest savings account to earn some extra cash on top.
We have a guide on the site that we've linked to below,
going through the best savings accounts available right now, and it is such an easy.
Way to boost your savings with basically no effort.
Similar to the 1p Challenge, but with a little more money involved, is the £1 Challenge—which again,
people typically start at the beginning of the year, but really, you can do it whenever you want.
Rather than making daily savings, with the £1 challenge, it's more of a weekly thing.
So in week one, you save £1. In week two, you save £2. In week three, you save £3, and so on.
Until the final week of the year—week 52—where you save £52.
Now don't get me wrong;
I totally get that saving £40 or £50 a week—particularly
towards the end of the year—is a big ask, and not
everyone can afford that. But if you can, then this is great.
Way to stay disciplined with your savings...
because if you stick with it, at the end of the year you'll have £1,378. And again,
if you want to switch it around, feel free. So you're having to save £52 in week one, £51 in week two,
and then you're only needing to save £1 in week 52.
And like the 1p Challenge, make sure all of this money is going into a high-interest savings account to
make some super easy extra free cash.
Moving on to the savings challenge with the biggest
returns yet, and that is the £1,500 Challenge, which is fairly manageable.
Way to save a huge amount of money.
It follows a similar principle to the £1 and 1p challenges,
in that you're still putting money away on a kind of regular basis.
But this time, it is slightly different.
So on a Monday, you're putting away £1, on Tuesday, £2... all the way,
through to Sunday, when you're doing £7. But when Monday rolls around again, you don't save £8.
Instead, you just start the whole process again,
saving £1 on Monday, £2 on Tuesday, and again hitting that £7 on Sunday.
The beauty of it is you never have to save more than £7 in a single day—but at the end of the week,
it's £28, and at the end of the year, it's £1,456—hence that £1,500 Challenge name.
And even though that's easily
the biggest amount of the challenges we've gone through so far, it still feels weirdly manageable because of those small
daily savings amounts—especially when you compare it to the £1 Challenge.
Next up is a really easy way.
to do it save at least £10 a month and potentially even more if you pop it into a high-interest savings account.
So you're probably sick of people saying that you should cancel your Netflix subscription,
or stop paying for Spotify if you want to save money—and we will get to that in a minute...
A good first step is to go into your bank account.
And look for any subscriptions that are still rumbling on that you might have forgotten to cancel.
And then regardless of what you find, have a think
about whether you could cope with canceling any of the subscriptions that you do use.
So maybe you could move back to the free version of Spotify for a bit.
Or maybe you could live without Netflix for a while and just use free streaming sites instead...
And before you judge them, we've got an article on the website reviewing the best free streaming
websites, and honestly, some of them have some really, really good films and TV shows...
But whatever you end up cutting back on.
Don't just sit back and be proud of the extra money in your bank account.
Instead, move whatever you would have spent on those subscriptions into a separate savings account, again as high interest as possible.
You'll make sure that you actually save the money!
That way, and won't accidentally end up spending it on something else instead.
Now, you might have heard of round-up savings before, and you might already be doing them.
But I'd say there's a pretty good chance that you're not getting
the most value out of your round-ups, so do stick with me on this.
Very quickly for anyone who doesn't know:
round-ups are basically a thing that you can opt into, whereby whenever you spend an amount that isn't a whole pound.
Your bank will round it up to the next nearest pound and move the difference over to a savings account.
So let's say you spend £4.50 on something—your bank will then round that up to £5 and automatically move that 50p over to a savings account.
Which isn't a huge amount of money, but it does all add up—especially when you know how to max it out.
So here's the thing: some banks and apps will pay
this into a high-interest savings account for you, and at the time of making this article,
Chase Bank has the best offer on the market, paying 5% interest on your round-ups.
But they're not the only ones, because both Plum and Monzo can do this too.
So for some of your other options, check out our guide to the best app-based bank accounts.
last, but definitely not least, is to try and get into the habit of having at least one no-spend day
every week—because over time, you'll find it makes a massive difference to how easy you find it to save money.
So as you might have guessed, a no-spend day is literally just a day where you spend no money at all.
You can make some small allowances if you absolutely need to—so, for example, you might need to pay for transport to get to work or to uni.
Ideally, you wouldn't spend anything at all.
This all might need a bit of planning too, so you'll want to be in the habit of doing a weekly
food shop, or at the very least shopping for a few days at a time.
But it's absolutely worth it because it's all about shifting
away from that mindset—that routine—where you end up spending money every single day.
It's not just for the psychological impact.
Because if you have everything you need for a day,
then there's no need for you to go to a shop, and you won't get sucked in by an impulse buy.
So as I say, try to have at least one no-spend day every week—but if you can manage more, then absolutely go for it,
because it is such a good habit to get into. So there you go!
Those are six of the best savings challenges for you to try!
Hopefully, there is more
than enough there for you to get stuck into, but do let me know in the comments which
one you're most excited to try first. And of course, don't forget to share.
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