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The 52-Week Money Challenge

This is somewhat considered to be a “late” post, but because I promised to myself that I will try to at least have one post every month – I thought of using this challenge that I am into for this month.

The challenge that I am referring to is the – 52-Week Money Challenge, which I think is not really new to a lot of people. I don’t know where exactly it originated but it is everywhere in the internet world. On the last few weeks of 2013, I have been seeing this money challenge in different sites, especially in Pinterest. Since spending less and saving more is on my 2014 To Do list, I thought of giving this challenge a try.

The concept is very simple, each week you will keep or deposit an amount that is equivalent to the number of that week of the year. For example, on week 1 of 2014, you will deposit $1, the following week (which is week 2) you will deposit $2, then $3 for week 3. You will add a dollar a week until you reached the last week of the year which is week 52. By the end of the year, your savings is close to $1,400.00 ($1,378 to be exact). If you will look at the 52-week chart which best represents this concept, you will really think that it is fairly easy to do.

Well, for someone like me, who is trying to find ways to improve my “spending and savings habit” this is a great idea. And I feel that it’ll work because you will start small and it will help you to working on to build a simple saving habit. The act of saving will become effortless as time progresses and as you see your savings grow each week, you will have something to always look forward to. And if you put the money you saved into an interest-earning bank account, you’ll have more than $1,378 by week 52, it will not be a very big addition to your money but it is a safe way to keep them.

52weekchallengeThough, I have my personal dilemma in taking this challenge, even if we are still on the first 4 weeks of the first month of the year, I am already expecting that the big challenge for me in completing this money challenge is on week 49 to week 52. These weeks fall on the month of December and as the plan suggests, the amount of money that you have to put aside each week is equivalent to the number of the week that you are in. Therefore, for December I have to put aside, $49, $50, $51 and $52 respectively. I need to save $202 for the month where the demand to spend is the highest! We all know that December is a tough month! It wouldn’t be easy, eh!

Other netizens’ solution – do the challenge in REVERSE! They will start the challenge by putting aside $52 and work backwards, which means in week 2 it’ll be $51, week 3 would be $50 and so on.

Well, people have different financial situations and have different ways of coping up with the financial challenge that they encounter. And as an ordinary employee, I surely know that I will encounter some weeks of the year that is not easy for me to keep up with this money-challenge. So, I thought of putting it this way – if there will be times that I cannot come out with the expected amount of money that I should set a side on a particular week – I JUST HAVE TO SAVE AS MUCH AS I CAN and just put an additional column in the chart where I can put how much did I actually saved on that particular week.

Why will I do this when I can just try to make up for those weeks that I might missed? Again, as I said, there may be tough weeks for me, especially those weeks that require higher amount of savings. And if instead of putting what I only have and just decide to miss that week, it’ll going to be tough to get back on my savings routine. And if fortunately, I’ll have extras on other weeks, I can go beyond the amount required to compensate the weeks that I have less. Guess what, since, it’s pretty easy to start this challenge as it only requires small amount, I already did the liberty of putting aside amount that is higher than what I should be saving.

Whichever way we choose, at the end of the day, I still stick to my goal and that is to build savings.

Momsiecle

Momsiecle

Momsiecle is short for Momsie's Circle. I started my first blog on a free blogging platform in 2006 as a just for fun blog. When my family and I moved to Winnipeg in 2009, I started to write about my challenges and discoveries about living in Canada as an immigrant. In 2012, I decided to make momsiecle.com a place to come for aspiring Canadian immigrants and for people who are embracing life in the “new world” that they are in.

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Cup of Tyh

HI I’M CRISTINA!
Thanks for stopping by, as I make this space to be my superwoman wannabe diary, I want to share my life experiences as a mom, an immigrant, a financial advisor, a mortgage specialist and my life in general.

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