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3 Money challenges that are worth trying article
3 Money challenges that are worth trying article

Setting yourself money goals is much like setting yourself a New Year’s resolution. You have good intentions, start off strong in the beginning, and end up fizzling out within a few months.

But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. Giving yourself a financial goal to meet within a fixed timeframe, even if you only partially complete it, will leave you better off in the long run.

Money challenges can be a great help to those who struggle to stick to their financial resolutions. They’re easy to do, easy to stick to and don’t require you to start with money you don’t have, allowing you to save money easily without even having to think about it.

With that in mind, we’ve laid out our top three money challenges that we think everyone should have a go at.

Money saving challenges

The 1p Challenge

Perhaps the most popular challenge to try is the 1p challenge. This is commonly used because it doesn’t involve setting aside huge amounts each day/week and is really effective if you stick to it.

The basis of this challenge is simple, on day one you save 1p, then the next day save 2p, then 3p the day after and so on and so forth. This is generally done for a one-year period, meaning by the time you reach day 365 you’ll be saving £3.65 and have saved a total of £667.95 (£671.61 in a leap year).

You can start this challenge by printing off one of the many charts available online and manually ticking off each day as you save. Alternatively, some banks have this feature on their banking apps.

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The No Spend Challenge

This challenge is slightly more difficult, and it will test your self-control. Designed to help people reign in spending on things they don’t need, it can be a great way to inject some fun into your budgeting.

In the words of Ronseal, it does exactly what it says on the tin. The idea of this challenge is to put a ban on yourself to not spend any money on non-essential items for set period of time (usually a month). Essentially, things like your rent/mortgage, bills and your food shopping are the only things you are really allowed to spend money on in this challenge. Everything else is off limits.

You can make this challenge easier for yourself by setting your essential funds into a separate account, preventing you from dipping into the money you’re supposed to be saving.

The Summer Savings Challenge

This one was created by online bank Monzo, designed like the 1p challenge to help people save little and often. Whilst this may not be ideal for saving for your summer holiday, it’s a perfect way to save for birthdays and Christmas.

The premise for this challenge is to save £2 whenever the temperature goes above 20 degrees Celsius, wherever you are. Albeit, this may be quite hard for us Brits given our summer weathers flips more than flip flops do, but there is also the option to lower the temperature should you need to.

Monzo allow you to do this in their app by creating a pot specifically for your summer savings that they’ll automatically transfer the money into.  However, anyone can try this challenge by putting the money in a jar or in your savings account.

However, don’t feel you always have to stick to the rules of these challenges. You can alter them depending on how much you want to save. For example, you could change the 1p challenge into a £1 challenge or set yourself a no spend challenge on a specific category of items such as makeup or takeaways.

To find out more about how we can help, contact us today on 0808 2234 102. Our friendly advisors will be able to support you through the process of finding a debt relief solution that best suits your needs.

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Maxine McCreadie

Maxine is an experienced writer, specialising in personal insolvency. With a wealth of experience in the finance industry, she has written extensively on the subject of Individual Voluntary Arrangements, Protected Trust Deed’s, and various other debt solutions.

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Current Version

July 25 2019

Written by
Maxine McCreadie

Edited by
Maxine McCreadie