Early in the year (2015) I came across an interesting article on the BizNews website. It’s a very practical idea for saving money for the 52 weeks in the year; it’s called the 52 week challenge, by Dawn Ridler (a financial planner).
“It entails setting aside specific amounts every week of the year, starting with only R10 this week.”
Dawn writes, “If you don’t already have a ‘rainy day’ fund, this is a great time to start one. Make it fun. How about this 52-week challenge? For each week of the year save Ten Rand times the week of the Year. R10 in week one, R20 in week two and so on.”
As I read this article about the 52 week challenge, I thought “what a brilliant idea, I will do it!” I took out a notebook, and jot down the amounts I would be saving per week. R10 for each week of the year sound simple enough, until you get to, let’s say week 10, and you must fork out a R100, followed by R110 in the following week. Let alone, those final weeks in the year, on week 50 that would be a R500, and R510 the week after, closing off with R520 in the last week of the year!
Should you be able to manage sticking diligently to this 52 week challenge, you would have saved R13 780 throughout the year, which is a great achievement!
Personally, this 52 week challenge is not for me, but I wasn’t discouraged. I found many other variations to this challenge; you could do it fortnightly, even on a monthly basis. Hence the “R50 money challenge”, you start off by saving a R50 per month and increasing it with increments of R50 each month. E.g. the following month you will save R100, and R150 the month after that. If you were to start in March 2015 with a R50 savings, you would end up on R2750 by December 2015.
You could do the challenge individually, or as part of a group- which is more fun and will also keep you accountable for your savings goal.
Take up the challenge; choose whichever savings plan that suits your wallet. Save to invest!
