52 Week Money Challenge Update

While talking with a friend a few days ago, she asked if I was still doing the 52 Week Money Challenge. I wish I could have told her that I had faithfully kept up with it, but I couldn't. Somewhere along the way, it got harder and harder to come up with "cash" every week {we don't keep alot of cash on hand}. I also ended up "borrowing" from the jar to pay a bill or if I needed $20 I'd just go to the jar. Problem was, I never put it back. She said that she had been keeping up with it, but also said that the cash was hard for her as well to come up with each week. She had a few suggestions on how it would probably work better. (1) Start an online account, just for this, and transfer the amount each week to build up the account. Great idea! So much easier to transfer $34 from my checking to savings, then scrounging up $34 cash! (2) Break the year up into 2 sets of 26 weeks...ex. after week 26 start over....week 1=$1, week 2=$2, and so on. You would only save $702, but hey, $702 is nothing to laugh at. :O) I really loved this whole idea of putting a little away each week and having this "extra" money at the end of a year, so I decided to redo the challenge to suit me. I'm using her idea of splitting up the year into 2- 26 weeks, but I decided to have the amount to deposit set up like this: Week 1- $5, Week 2- $10, Week 3- $15, Week 4- $20, repeat....$5, $10, $15, $20....making the largest deposit $20 and no odd dollar amounts to come up with. At the end of 1 year the total will be $700, which for me, will come just in time to start Christmas shopping! (I decided to start with week 1-October 7th and run it through week 52- September 29). Here's how my challenge looks: I bought the jar up to date and have a $65.00 balance. You'll notice I added 4 weeks bonus weeks {*$25 deposits} to make the total an even $700.00. I think this challenge is definitely do-able and more realistic for me. Hopefully, I'll do a better job staying on track this time!
-There are many ways to do this challenge and it can be adjusted to suit just about any budget. I think putting aside a little extra money each week is a great way to save for a vacation, a new appliance, or just a little extra money for the holidays.




So here goes....let's try this challenge again & congrats to all who have kept up with the 52 Week Challenge.