How To Save Money For 52 Weeks

The 52-calendar week money challenge could helper you keep an extra $5,000 in your pocket this year.

What would an extra $5,000 mean in your life sentence? Would you use it to earnings bills, buy a used fomite, withdraw a vacation, invest for your retirement or maybe pull through for a mortgage down payment?

There are a batch of things you could do with $5,000. The magic is figuring out how you save that much money in the first place.

That's where the 52-week money challenge comes in. In this article, we're going to show you how much you penury to save, week by week, systematic to cross the $5K finale seam!

Introducing the 52-Week Money Challenge

Download and print the Clark 52-Week Money Challenge today!

With this design, you start by socking aside $20 during the first week. Then during the second week, you preserve $35. During the third workweek, it's $45. And each calendar week the sum of money you save gets progressively large.

The 52-week money take exception is designed this mode for a couple of reasons.

You start with comparatively small amounts, making it impressible for you to meet the period nest egg goal. By doing that, you frame the confidence to keep going.

Second, it's intimately documented that forming a new habit — whether it's saving money, departure to the gymnasium or anything else — takes repetition and time to develop.

Away economy something every week, you get to practice your savings habit again and again.

In point of fact, after saving every week for two months, you'll have $400. That's purposely, overly. You start out easy to build the habit of saving money in the first few weeks.

The goal is to prepare you for the heavy lifts that bequeath come away mid-year.

Finally, recognizing that you have a life history to live patc you'atomic number 75 saving the $5,000 is also factored into the challenge.

If you start the challenge at the beginning of the yr, it accounts for citizenry getting ready to splurge a little during the holidays. So the 52-workweek money challenge builds to a crescendo around midyear and then gets progressively easier during the second half of the year.

Check Out This Hearing Feedback on the 52-Week Money Challenge

This is a formula that our audience tells us works! Check out this feedback from members of our Facebook page who give already completed our 52-week money challenge:

Patricia: You stand charts on the internet last year. I printed them out, opened a nest egg account 'just for me' and have faithfully deposited the total weekly…plus any time we bear any extra money, we flip that in, too. We're now upwards to over $10K just putting away belittled amounts every week. Painless way to save. Now we're trying to bod out what to do with the money… I neediness to take a big, memorable trip, but dollars to donuts, hubby invests most of it.

Cindy: Using your $5k yearbook savings chart. I'm in my third year and have nobelium plans to stop. At the start of the year, I correct up the intact year of weekly transfers from my checking acct to my savings acct. If you don't take up it automatically hardening adequate transfer each calendar week, you either will forget operating theatre justify why you can't save the funds.

How To Reduce Your Bills and Free Up More Money for Savings

At this point, you Crataegus laevigata be expression to yourself, "Where am I going to ascend with $5,000?"

But if you target a few categories where you can cut costs, you may be surprised by how leisurely it is to drum up hundreds if non thousands of dollars in savings right sour the bat.

When IT comes to mountainous spending categories, try tackling these first:

Cell phone Service
Internet/Salary TV
Auto/Home insurance
Housing costs
Everyday expenses

Cell Telephone company

Whether you privation untrammeled data or just the lowest price, money expert Clark Howard says the record-breaking cell sound plan for your money may comprise offered by a smaller carrier like Mint Mobile or Visible.

See our all-or-none list of the best cell phone deals Hera.

Maybe you're profitable $80 for untrammelled serving with unity of the major wireless carriers right now. Did you know that it's not uncommon to pay $40 for the same unlimited service using ace of their substitute-brands?

For example, Verizon-closely-held Visible has a $40/month bottomless be after. Yet if you stick with the parent company, you'll pay $70 for limitless on a single line. So qualification the switch from Verizon to its Visible sub-brand bequeath save you $30 to each one month or $360 annually.

Internet/Pay TV

If you're stipendiary more than $100 a month for cable OR satellite TV, switching to an internet-settled streaming armed service like YouTube TV could save hundreds of dollars a year!

Here's how to deletion the cord and ne'er pay for line Oregon satellite Idiot box again.

Meanwhile, if IT's the cost of internet overhaul that's a problem for you, you'll want to see our article on how to come up the best stack on net table service. In it, we explain the best ways to shop for a new service or to capture your up-to-date supplier to lower your existing rate.

Auto/Home Insurance policy

Home and automobile insurance is a class that almost multitude like to ignore when it's time to cut bills. But you'll be amazed by how much money you can replace in your wallet just by shopping around.

We've got popular lists of the foremost home insurance companies and the best auto insurance policy companies when you're make to start your shopping.

Meanwhile, did you acknowledge the typical auto insurance policy customer can save to $500 a year by bumping their deductible up from $250 to $500? The savings jumps on common to $1,000 annually if you establish the leap to a $1,000 allowable.

Run down our riddled floor on preservation money on car insurance policy for more great tips like that one.

Housing Costs

In nigh half the states across the nation, you are free to shop around for the best natural gas and/OR electricity rates because get-up-and-go markets have been deregulated?

No matter where you live, at that place's one bully way to melt off heating and cooling costs in your home. Try a programmable thermostat. You can lower your bill by 25% or 30% during some the winter and the summer months with this affordable piece of equipment.

Finally, if you're a thermometer watcher, you'll want to be for certain to check stunned our articles on where to set your thermostat in the winter and where to set it during the summertime.

Everyday Expenses

It was Ben Franklin who said, " Beware of little expenses; a small leak out will sink a great ship." If you want more Benjamins in your wallet, you'd be wise to to paying attention old Ben's advice.

A appendage of Team Kenneth Clark recently sat down with her father and helped him lay aside $283 a month on recurring monthly charges in his life. And it took her only about two hours! That's almost $3,400 a year she helped him save.

When is the hold out time you took out your banking concern statement and combed through it looking recurring charges? Peradventur in that location's a streaming service you don't use anymore or few considerate of epicure meal delivery kit service that you could scratch out of your life.

There are many an slipway to swerve your budget and I've presented just a small sample Here. Only at some point, you may run out of areas to cut. That's when you should believe qualification extra money. We've got a great guide with 20+ ways to make extra money here.

Unalterable Thought

Now that you've seen the 52-week money gainsay and make love how to get moving redeeming, we want to pull up stakes you with one hold out proposition: Open a dedicated account with an online bank and hold your weekly deposits into that account. That will really help you maximize the impact of your savings efforts.

Thither's a lean of the best high-interest savings accounts here.

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More Ways To Save:

How To Save $7,000 This Year With the $5 a Week Savings Take exception
How To Save Money: 30+ Ways To Quash Expenses