So you’ve seen all the posts and you think ‘Wow! I’d love to save £1,378 by the end of the year!’

But this is why I won’t be doing the 52 week money challenge…

We would all love to have over £1000 of spare cash at the end of the year, and this money challenge SOUNDS good, but in reality, I don’t think it is.

If you haven’t heard of it, you save increasing amounts of money each week for 52 weeks.

Week one you put away £1, week two you put away £2, week 3 you put away £3, week 52 you put away £52…. £52?! 

I’m sorry, but if I have £52 a week disposable income, I wouldn’t really need to save!

There may be people out there that can do this and love the money challenge, if so, great! I admire you,  but this just isn’t for me – I simply couldn’t afford it.

There are some great alternatives I’ve heard which I’m going to give a try, if you want to do them together then it would be fab to know how you are doing throughout the year 🙂

• A family member of mine collects £2 coins. She keeps them all in a jar and doesn’t really notices she’s putting them away because it’s only £2 every few days or so. She counted the jar just before Christmas and had over £900! 
• I’ve seen the penny money challenge – it is the same concept as the above but day one you put 1p away, day two 2p and so on. You do this over 365 days and you will have saved £667.95 – Much more achievable than the original!
• The way I save right now. Any loose change in my purse, I’ll put into a piggy bank. whether it is 97p or 5p, it all builds up over the year.
• If you do happen to have any disposable income at the end of the week, save 2/3 of it and keep the rest for emergencies.
• Move the decimal point – Week one save 10p, week two 20p, week 52 £5.20. You’ll have saved £137 by the end of it. – Thank you Laura 🙂
• £26 from week 1 to week 52 would give you the same outcome of the £1-£52 one. – Thank you Ljaay 🙂
• You could do weeks 1-26, then go backwards 26-1 so the most dearest weeks would be in the middle of the year, but £26 can be too much for some people. – Thank you Laura 🙂
• I transfer my ‘loose change’ in my bank account into a spare account. E.g. If I have £199.57 in my bank I’d transfer 4.57 into my savings account. Adds up so quickly. – Thank you Steph 🙂

• I saw one that started at 10p and increased by 10p a week and worded out at over 100 pound for Xmas… Sorts the food shop? I think it was like that – Thank you Maria 🙂
• I’m going to get a money box that I can’t get into unless I smash it! And save all my change and maybe put notes into it too! I’m excited! – Thank you Louise 🙂
• My mum puts all her silver into a jar, all of her coppers into another. Within about 2 months she had £50 kicking about in the silver and about £10 in the coppers. – Thank you Lauren 🙂
• I have a separate bank account set up for Xmas and me and my fiancé put £40 a month for 10mnths in from our wages which we save and this covers Christmas giving us £400. I know this is not suitable for everyone but if it’s in a bank account you don’t see the money so not tempted to spend it – Thank you Carly 🙂
• Buy a gift card with each pay check and use those gift cards for Christmas shopping – Thank you Leanne 🙂

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for saving money but I want a realistic savings plan and one where I’m not worrying about having to find £52 spare at the year.