Thursday, Savings challenges for 2020!

 

Who is this crazy woman?  What will she do in 2020? Will she get dressed?  Will she do something with her hair?
Will she accomplish anything?  Stay tuned......( jammies by Sissie, I love them)

     Actually this was supposed to be a picture of my pig bank.  It was one of the first savings challenges I started about 7 years ago. I just started to save all my loose change and on my grandmothers birthday, December 7th I would cash it in for Christmas mad money.  Mom when she was alive and living with me also saved her change.  It was fun to see who would have the most.  One year it was over $700.00.  But that was also a year that I was not really working as hard as I could to pay off debt.  When you start to really pay off debt you spend less and have less change.  This year I had $180.00 in the bank which really helped with Christmas groceries.  I think saving your spare change is a great was to start saving.  It is the saving challenge I would recommend for someone deep in debt that just needs to start saving something.  So get a box, or a can or bank and start throwing in your change at the end of the day.  See how much you can save.  This really works and it is easy!

     I loves me pig bank.  It was given to me by my eldest daughter.  I had asked for it for Christmas years ago.  One of my favorite gifts.  I am a simple person. (Sluggy no comments).


     The second savings challenge I added to my crazy life when things became a little more stable, was this savings charts.

     I added this about 4 years ago.  I use it in the shop and in my weekly strategy to pay off debt.  Any extra money in any of my weekly categories in my budget, or money coming in was marked off on this sheet.  For instance.  I tried to stick to $50.00 a week for groceries.  After my grocery shop I would see if there was any money left and then mark it off on the chart.  So say I only spent $33.15 , I would put the .15 in the pig bank and mark off the 17 dollar space.  I would do this with my power and water bill.  So it would get me to conserve.  Any way to lower my expenses.  I would do this with my gas budget for the week.  Any extra money that came in from Hub's side job or from rebates.  I did not do one per week but filled out charts as I could.  I cannot begin to say how much this helped with my debt pay off through out the last several years.  I have been able to save just more and more money  and this went directly toward debt.

     If you are deep in debt this is probably not the saving plan for you.  I would suggest you do it one per week if you can, but remember your debt should always be the goal.

     Last year I started two new challenges to me and they both worked great!

     The first one was to save every $5.00 that crossed my path.  Honestly I consistently saved almost $200.00 a month.  Sometimes I would take a $20.00 to go and get a coke at MCD's and I would get three 5's back and three ones and some change.  This was disheartening when it was my mad money for the week.  As the change went into piggy and the 5's into an envelope. But I was diligent. I have to say I also borrowed from the 5 dollar envelope when I was broke, but I kept careful track and by the end of October I had saved a little over $2500.00 which helped me pay off my house.  If you are deeply in debt this strategy cold be used monthly to pay towards a bill.  Try it!

     I also started this fun challenge of saving a penny for the day.

 I was with my Sissie and Sluggy last Winter when we went out for Slugs birthday, and we were perusing a second hand store. Sissie found this singer sewing canister and bought it for my shop.  The concept is you save a penny for every day of the year.  The first is a penny, the second two pennies, the third three pennies as follows.  By the 100th day of the year you will be saving a dollar or more a day.  I got to the point that I would tally the month and just make sure I put in that amount for the month.  So in the month of January you will save $7.66, but in say in October you will be saving at least $3.00 a day.  Again this challenge is one you need to think about if you are deeply in debt to high interest loans.  Saving money  while you are seriously in debt is counter productive in many ways.  But this was a fun challenge and added over $500.00 to my house pay off.

     There is another strategy I have have found that also uses a chart and I don't know if I will do this one or not.

     Don't you love the graphics?  Here you just pick a number for the week and save that amount. So say one week you have $50.00 extra dollars you save it and mark off the $50.00.  If you are broke you can choose a smaller amount such as $1, or $3.  Again this is not a challenge for those of you who are in serious high interest debt.  Unless you want to take the monthly total and use it for pay off.  It does not make sense to save this much money for the year which if you save for 50 weeks you save $1,275.00.  Now you can add two more spots and make it 52 weeks, or you can add 0's to your chart so you have a couple of weeks that you get a break.  It is up to you.  But I thought this was a fun way to save a lump sum of money. Especially for Christmas or a vacation, or maybe something you want to buy.


     Anyway, These are the challenges I will be using this year.  They might be harder with us selling the house and maybe going on a mission.  This will put a wrinkle in things, but I am starting the new year with these goals.  You do what you can.

     Finding fun ways to save money works for me.  Did you know Sluggy saved over $40.00 in just money she found this last year?  Come on folks pick up pennies!

     My money savings challenges for the year are going to help pay off the car.  It is at 0 percent so I don't feel bad about saving instead of paying off.  But to get rid of the $500.00 a month bill will be nice.

     Okay any of you up for a challenge?  Would you like to join me on any of these?  Let my know in the comments which one or ones you would like to do, or if you have a different challenge let me know and I will post.  We can do these together and  report back, what we have done and what we have paid off, or purchased or just plain saved.  2020 the year of the savings challege!

     Well I need to get dressed and get into the shop, making chili for dinner, as it uses up burger and beans and tomatoes from the pantry and freezer.  Must down size before we move.  It also saves money.

Have a great and productive day staying positive while you are in the negative.

Kim