As the mother of two college students, my savings are now completely gone and I've been reading personal finance blogs trying to get some ideas on how the heck I'm going to pay for my son's last two years of college. Most of their tips are completely worthless because either I'm already doing it (Ditch cable! Brown bag your lunches! Turn down your thermostat! Yeah, right, if this house was any colder the pipes would freeze) or they completely don't apply to me (Sell your designer clothes on EBay! Ummm... What designer clothes?). But today I came across some articles on savings challenges and I thought, "maybe I can do that?"
The 52 week challenge
This is a challenge that's destined to fail. Even with the 10 Great Alternatives to the 52 week Challenge it eventually requires you to save way more than any struggling saver is ever going to manage, or do something insane like save 52 coins one week. But there is one realistic possibility in there:
The 365 Day Money Challenge
This one seems actually possible. You have to save something every single day, but most days you could find the amount needed in your couch cushions! The most you ever have to come up with in one day is $3.65, and by the end of the year you'll have $667.95, not a huge amount, but realistically I don't think I can manage more than that until I can get those darn kids through school.
But there's one problem with this challenge. $667.95 is a dumb amount to aim for. We humans LOVE whole numbers! I don't want to save $667.95, I want to save up to some nice, round, whole number, it's just SOOOO much more satisfying if the goal is a cool number! And, of course, what number is really close to $667.95? Why, $666 of course! So with just a slight alteration, Saving with Satan was born!
In my version of the 365 day challenge, you only save on 364 days, the day with $1.95 is replaced with a little devil, so that the total amount saved comes out to exactly $666. On a leap year, you would need to save every day, but on a non-leap year, you will have one day to say, "screw it, I'm not saving today!"
I looked for an app to keep track of the daily savings, but I couldn't find one (opportunity for an app developer!), so I made my own on Google Drive. It's very simple, just a spreadsheet with all the amounts. The amounts are formatted as "plain text" to start with. As I pay off each amount, I will change the format to "currency", this causes the number to turn red and be counted into the "Amount Saved" and "Days Saved" fields at the bottom of the page. As the year progresses, the spreadsheet will turn from boring black to a satisfying red and I'll be able to see my progress at a glance!
Here's a link to my spreadsheet: Saving with Satan Feel free to make a copy and play along, or print it out and tape it to a big jar. I've emptied my regular change jar, a huge, slightly mis-shapened stoneware vase I made in a pottery class many, many years ago, to use for a piggy bank. Once I get up to a hundred dollars or so, I plan to move it to my credit union savings account. I think the key to succeeding in this challenge is to knock out those big $2 and $3 amounts whenever you can, so that you can slack off when money gets really tight.
Good luck! And remember, the devil gets your soul if you don't save something every day! (Except, of course the one free day!)
