海角大神

Several of my friends recently sent me copies of a 鈥�52 week money challenge鈥� that several of them are doing to save up about $1,400 this year. The challenge is best described by

Note that I don鈥檛 have an actual source for this table. It was merely sent to me by multiple friends. I鈥檓 sure there鈥檚 an original source聽somewhere聽for this, but I never found an original source, just a ton of visual variations on it. Still, the math behind it is really simple, so it would be very easy to replicate it.

Anyway, the idea is simple. During the first week of the year, you save $1. During the second week, you save $2. Keep adding a dollar each week so that during the last week of the year, you鈥檙e socking away $52. Even without interest, this adds up to $1,378 over the course of a year.

The appeal of the plan is obvious.聽When you first see it and look at the first week, you can鈥檛 help but reflect on the idea that it only requires you to save聽one dollar聽this week, yet by the end of the year, you鈥檒l have more than a thousand. That seems like impressive growth.

Of course, the catch is that聽the later weeks are far more challenging than the earlier ones.聽If you start this in January, December鈥檚 weeks are going to require you to put away $49, $50, $51, and $52, respectively. This plan is asking people to put aside more than $200 during the one month of the year when money is often the tightest.

Don鈥檛 get me wrong, the idea of聽slowly growing your commitment to saving makes a lot of sense. It becomes easier and easier to find ways to sock a little bit away the longer you do it.

However, the idea of increasing your savings on such a smooth, straight line doesn鈥檛 match reality.聽Our lives simply aren鈥檛 a smooth, straight line.

One way people who save compensate for that is by having an emergency fund (cash stored away in a savings account for an emergency). Another way is through automatic investing, where money is taken automatically out of their checking account each week and invested for them, requiring them to live off of what鈥檚 left in checking.

However, neither of these ideas really apply here.

滨苍蝉迟别补诲,听I鈥檇 simply propose a little change to this 鈥�52 week money challenge.鈥�聽It doesn鈥檛 really change much about the plan, but it does help with the fact that people have varying lives.

Each week,聽make it your goal to save as much as you can.聽Can you save $20 this week? How about $40? How about $52? The higher you can make that number, the better. You can bump that number up through little choices during the week.

At the end of the week,聽just cross off the line on the 鈥渕oney challenge鈥� table that matches how much you were able to save.聽If you were only able to sock away $15 this week, cross off the $15 line. If you saved $52 this week, cross off the $52 line.

Why do this? If you just follow the chart as-is, you鈥檙e going to eventually run into a week where it鈥檚 not easy to make that goal. If you fail for a week, it鈥檚 going to feel pretty tough to get back on the routine. On the other hand, some weeks are going to be full of opportunities and saving $40 or $50 will be much easier. On top of that, you鈥檙e going to be most enthusiastic about this project at the start, which means it makes sense to try to cross off a few big numbers during the first few weeks.

Print off that table. Stick it on the fridge. Each week, save as much as you can. Cross off the line that matches how much you were able to save. If one week is a little worse than the one before it, no big deal. You can rebound next week.

搁别尘别尘产别谤,听the goal is to build savings in a realistic way, through the ups and downs of your life.Every week should involve some forward progress, but some weeks will be better than others. Even if you don鈥檛 find the 鈥�52 week money challenge鈥� to be particularly useful, there鈥檚 still a great deal of value in keeping that principle of realistic savings in mind.

You don鈥檛 have to set a new savings record every week. You just need to move forward all the time, at least a little.

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