Best money saving challenges for 2023

Money, money, money…always on my mind and never in my pockets.
If you always end up broke at the end of the month, despite having a good salary and maybe an additional passive flow of income, you might want to look into money saving techniques and money saving “challenges”.

These challenges have gathered popularity in the last years as an easy, fun and creative way of motivating people to save up money. The usual scheme of these challenges revolves around encouraging people to set a daily, weekly or monthly goal and to set aside a certain amount of money.

As most online challenges, the spread of hashtags such as #SavingsChallenge or #52WeekChallenge has helped to develop a huge “movement” of savers, connecting people online and allowing them to share their experiences, successes and failures.

In general I have to say that, at least from what I can see in my social circles and from the attitude many of my acquaintances have, financial wellness and literacy have been an increasing point of focus for the younger general population. Maybe turning everything into a “challenge” makes chores into a funnier and more accessible way of doing so. “Clean your room challenge”, “Walk your dog challenge!”, “Break up with your boyfriend challenge!”, and so on. These challenges usually come with specific rules and guidelines, and that’s what makes it fun, you’ll be able to tailor these challenges to your specific case, and pick a new one if you don’t feel like continuing.

It’s not easy to trace back these trends to the first exact money saving challenge, people have been coming up with creative ways of saving money for centuries now. However, one of the earliest and most well known one is the 52-week challenge, but we’ll get into that later in the article. Are you trying to be more careful with your spending and/or improve your financial situation? Whether you’re trying to pay off debt or to put money aside to go travel and check items off your bucket list, developing and learning money saving strategies can help you get there faster.

You can create a budget, stick to it, and still find creative ways of saving without sacrificing your quality of life. “Oh, I’ve saved 100 euros this month, but haven’t left my flat for anything other than work and groceries”, this would not be a sustainable approach to saving to me personally.

Let’s now take a look at the best money saving challenges:

1. The 52-week money saving challenge

A classic, the 52-week money challenge is a popular savings plan that has gained widespread popularity in recent years. The rules are quite basic as it involves saving a small amount of money each week for a year, starting with one euro (or one unit of local currency) in the first week, and then increasing the amount by one unit each week. By the end of the challenge, you should have been able to save 1370€.
Easy, fun (i guess) and straight to the point. If you are interested in following what other people have achieved or how they decided to invest their newly found saving you can look up hashtags such as #52WeekChallenge or #MoneyChallenge on social media.

2. No-spend challenge

The name is pretty telling by itself, this challenge involves committing to a period of time during which you will not spend any money on non-essential items. The length of the challenge can vary, from a single day to a month or even longer. For example you could cook instead of eating out, make your own lattes with store bought ingredients instead of buying them out, etc. Together with saving you money, this challenge can help you feel more appreciative of what you consume when you understand how long and how much effort it takes to make it yourself.

3. Savings jar challenge

This challenge works quite well if you’re a cash in hand kind of person, and it’s as easy as it gets. Instead of planning your savings, counting euros and planning ahead of time, just throw all your loose change in a jar or in a container. Coins can really add up over time, and you get to save up for a specific goal while at the same time go back in time to the first piggy bank your parents bought you when you were a child. If it ain’t broke, dont fix it!

4. Library challenge

With this challenge you’ll hit two birds with a stone. The goal is to borrow books from your local library or from friends instead of buying them. You’ll save yourself money, space and reduce the clutter on your desk. Reading and lifelong learning are wonderful achievements to strive for, but spending money on books every month can easily be avoided by using the resources around you at their fullest.

Here listed were the four money saving challenges that i’ve enjoyed the most trying and failing, i hope you’ll enjoy that too! As a conclusion i just wanted to add that making the most out of your income might not always be possible, and if even after trying to follow this advice you find yourself in the position of being unable to make ends meet, it might be time to ask for a raise or change job.