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52 Ways to Save $100+ In One Year Challenge: Keep the Change

Ways to save money

Happy New Year!

Let me guess… one of your New Year’s resolutions was to stick to a budget, save your money, or maybe get out of debt?

If so, you’ll love this series!

Over the course of the next 52 weeks, I’ll be exploring different things you can do to save at least $100 each year. Start doing them all and that’s $5,200 a year! Nice!

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Why 52 Ways to Save $100 a Year (Or More)?

This year’s going to be different…

but how many times have you said that before?

Me too.

I’ve set resolutions in the flush of excitement for a new beginning. Let me be the first to tell you that I rarely make it to February.

In fact, this year I’m writing this on New Year’s Day and I’ve already broken my resolution to eat gluten and sugar free. And it’s only day 1!

Anyway, I digress.

One of the reasons why we fail to keep resolutions is that we try to make really big changes that take superhuman motivation. That’s fine for a short time, but maintaining that level of commitment is really hard…

So, what if we make tiny changes instead?

That’s what this series is all about: small changes that add up to a big impact.

How To Save $100 a Year

Saving $100 over the course of a year is easy:

Save $50 in 6 months.

Save $25 in 3 months.

Save $8.35 a month.

Save $3.85 a fortnight…

It’s less than $2 a week!

There are so many ways to save just $2 a week and I’m going to share 52 of them with you over the next 52 weeks. The more you add to your life the better your end result will be!

 

Let’s get saving:

Week 1 – Start Your Piggy Bank Today

Did you have a piggy bank as a kid?

I had a dragon! It was awesome! 🙂 

As an adult, I’ve got a not-so-awesome coin box from my bank. It’s a little boring, but it works.

Have you got one lying around that you can use?

Otherwise, you might want to try Amazon, they’ve got lots of different options!

I rather like this one. It’s a little more pricey than the average coin box… but it’s way prettier and sometimes I find that having nice tools to work with makes me more motivated. Your mileage may vary!

The Two Features You Need In Your Piggy Bank

There are only 2 things you really need to look out for when getting a money box:

  1. You can’t see the coins – it’s less of a temptation this way. It’s also more of a ‘surprise’ when you can’t see how many coins are in there.
  2. You can get the coins out without destroying the piggy bank – well… actually this depends on you! If you don’t think you can trust yourself to leave the coins alone, you might want to get an old school one that you have to smash or cut open to get the money out.

How You Save It

This is such an easy way to save! Simply empty out your pockets and purse each evening (or weekly if you like) and put all the small change into your money box. Voila!

Once you’ve filled up the money box – it’ll take less time than you think – you can deposit it in your bank account.

And… you’re done. You’ll have saved at least $100, painlessly.

How We Saved $800 in Small Change in Less Than A Year

(Ok, maybe it was 2 years ago… things have been crazy since my little one arrived.)

Saving all your change is pretty easy… but what if you committed to saving every coin or note of a particular value?

That’s what we did.

I’m in Australia and our largest value coin is $2. Our money box is ONLY for $2 coins. That’s all we save.

By the time the box is full it contains hundreds of dollars that we’ve not even noticed missing from our lives. It’s money that would otherwise have disappeared.

Imagine what you could do if you started collecting notes.

You’d be able to save thousands!

This is one brilliant saving hack I look forward to continuing in 2018.

Help Others Save More Easily

If you enjoyed this post, please share it on Pinterest so it can reach others in need of more savings in their lives!