An Easy-To-Follow 52 Week Savings Plan For All Families

Almost 70 percent of American adults have less than $1,000 saved away in case of emergencies. While most people might have been able to get by somehow in the past, in this post-pandemic world many people have realized that they are one disaster away from being homeless. If you are lucky enough to still be employed, it’s important to start saving up as much as you can just in case there’s a bigger economic downturn on the horizon. Even if nothing happens, it’s always good to have some extra money in the bank in case of a rainy day.

So how much should you put aside in an emergency fund? Most experts suggest at least three to six months’ worth of expenses. That amount can seem daunting, especially if you’re starting from zero dollars. Luckily, there’s an easy-to-follow system that can save you a good chunk of change by the end of the year if not more without really breaking the bank called the 52 weeks savings plan.

What is the 52-week savings challenge?

As the name suggests, this savings challenge is incredibly straightforward and relatively easy to follow. It’s easy enough that the whole family can get involved either by chipping in or starting their own mini savings plan. Even if you are a big spender, this challenge can help keep you on track because it’s super easy. You don’t have to worry about stock markets, minimum payments, etc.

Essentially, the challenge requires you set aside increasing amounts of money into your savings account every week. The amount you set aside depends on your budget. Remember that the challenge spans 52 weeks and the amount you will put away will increase every week. That means you should consider the maximum amount of money you can put away every month without affecting your ability to pay for basic necessities such as utilities, mortgage/rent, food, gas, etc.

When considering the max amount you can put away, really take a look at your budget and see if there are ways you can reduce the amount your paying. If you don’t have a budget yet, the first thing you should do is track your spending for a couple of months to see where your money goes. Don’t worry about cutting back on your spending just yet. You can use programs like Mint to track your habits. All you need to do is link up all of your accounts and the site will automatically import your transactions. If you don’t trust having your information pulled by a third-party site, you can track your expenses manually with Excel and either keep all of your receipts or go through your statements and break down your spending. Once you have a nice spreadsheet, you can really drill down to see where you’re spending a lot of money and where you can reduce costs.

How does the savings plan work?

The concept is simple - every week you put away an increasing amount of money into your savings account for that new hybrid mattress. Depending on how much money you can spare you can start with $1 your first week or $20. Essentially, each week you want to set aside one extra dollar a week. So if you did $1 the first week, the next you would set aside $2, then $3, and so on throughout the year.

If you find yourself with extra money at the end of one week, add it to your savings. This way you’ll end up with more savings at the end of the year or you’ll have a little extra padding if you can’t make a deposit one week. The nice thing is that the savings plan is versatile and can be adjusted to fit your needs. If you know that you won’t have a lot of money to set aside at the end of the year because of the holidays, you can reverse the plan and start off with the $52 the first week and then subtract a dollar every week until the end of the week. If you get paid bi-weekly, you can reduce your deposits whenever you receive your paychecks. If you do this you’ll have to add $2 instead of one. So your first deposit would be $1 and then your next would be $3 and so on.

What makes this savings method so effective is that it’s simple, easy to start, and adjustable. In the first month, you are only putting aside $10. Since you’re breaking up this amount into even smaller deposits every week, you’re painlessly saving. After all, are you really going to miss $1 the first week? What about $2 the next week? If you pay in cash, you probably have that amount of money lying around your house in loose change! The plan starts off easy to help improve your self-discipline. As you start seeing your savings grow, you’ll want to save even more money.

When is the best time to start the challenge?

Unsurprisingly, many people start off the 52-week challenge on New Year’s. However, you can start whenever you want! As the saying goes, the best time to do something was 10 years ago. The second best time is right now. If you’re determined to improve your financials then you can and should start now.

Best Time To Start The 52 Week Savings Challenge

With that said, the best time to start is at the beginning of a new month or week as it actually creates a ‘fresh start’ effect. Essentially, when you start on a ‘new’ week you are better at tackling goals and putting in the necessary effort. Interestingly, fresh starts don’t always work in your favor. If you’ve had a good week of savings, you might have low motivation to save the following week. As well, the effect of fresh starts seems to diminish over time. You’ve probably noticed this with your New Year’s resolution. During the first few months, you’re motivated to follow through with your resolutions, but as the year continues you tend to fall back into the same habits. You’re not alone. Only 12 percent of people will ever achieve their goals. So why does it fail and how can you prevent your goal of saving money from failing?

One of the biggest reasons people fail long-term goals is that they expect to see changes quickly. Good habits build up over time and generally require slow and steady effort. If you try to push yourself too much at once, your brain will try to avoid the ‘pain’ it’s feeling. It’s the reason why this savings challenge starts with such a low goal in the beginning. Anyone can set aside $10/month so it makes it more palatable. Another big reason resolutions fail is because the goals are too broad. Try to be as specific as you can when making your goal. Why do you want to save? What do you expect to do with this money? Sure, it can be an emergency fund, but once you’ve gotten used to saving, maybe you can start another account to save up for a vacation or a special treat for yourself or your family.

Few Suggestions

Once you’ve decided that you’re ready to get started with the 52-week challenge you can follow these suggestions to make it a little easier on yourself.

Involve the family - discuss with everyone and plan how to spend the savings. You can choose to give some to charity, plan a vacation, etc. If you have kids who earn money from part-time jobs, encourage them to take part in the challenge. This way, they will feel more involved and enjoy the eventual ‘goal’ at the end.
Track your progress - post a progress chart somewhere in your house where everyone can see it. This will motivate everyone in the family when they see the numbers increasing!
Consider your budget - the last week or so might be challenging as you’ll be setting aside $200 or so. If this is too much, run through weeks 1-26 twice. You won’t get to $1,000 but you’ll get pretty close!
Make it a game - if you know other families who want to save more, try to set up a friendly ‘competition’ to keep each other accountable and to see who saved more at the end of the year. The competition aspect could really encourage your family to save even more.
Don’t get discouraged - some weeks it might be harder to save than others. If you run into a period where the money is tight, go back to the beginning and just focus on saving small amounts of money. Try to avoid stopping altogether as that will make it too easy to fall off the saving wagon.

Remember, slow and steady wins the race. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re not able to make the target goal for that particular week, Instead, adjust your expectations and see if you need to lower your goal or find a way to increase the money you have available.

Build the challenge into your budget

When it comes to saving money, you need to be strategic about it. If you’ve already set up a budget you know exactly how much money is coming and going into each of your accounts. When you start your savings budget, you should make sure to have a line item for the challenge. Just having that line item for your budget can be motivation enough to ensure you save.

Build the 52 Week Savings Challenge Into Budget

One of the hardest parts about saving is consciously making the decision to sock away money instead of spending it. If this sounds like you, then it’s in your best interest to set up automatic transfers. Most banks allow for automatic transfer of your money into a savings account so you don’t even have to worry about doing it yourself. You can set it up so that every payday a certain amount of money gets transferred out. There are also apps that will help transfer the change from your transactions into a savings account for you so you can save while you shop!

Sell things you don’t need

If you’re looking for some extra money to pad your savings, take a close look at the items around your house. Unless you’re living that minimalistic lifestyle, chances are you probably have plenty of items that you don’t really use. Maybe you’re still holding onto your kid’s old toys or those fancy clothes that you wore once to a wedding. Whatever the case, now is the time to declutter your home and make some money.

52 Week Savings Challenge Tip: Sell Things You Don’t Use

There are several routes you can take when selling your items. You can always do the traditional yard sale where you put all of your items out on your yard and invite people in your neighborhood to buy items. For the most part, people probably don’t want to spend more than $20 on items at a yard depending on the product. It’s a great opportunity to sell used clothes, toys, books, etc. For more expensive items like electronics or designer clothes, it might make more sense to go the internet for those as you’ll probably find people willing to spend more money on certain items. This might take more time and will require you to take good pictures of the item and also package and deliver the product. However, depending on the product you can make decent money. For example, if you’re into photography and have some older lenses you no longer use, you can sell them from anywhere between $50-$500 depending on the brand and condition of the lens.

Find expenses you can cut back on

Another great way to increase the amount you can save is by reducing your expenses. You remember the budget you made? Well, now it’s time to figure out where you can reduce your costs. It might seem like all of your sending categories are set in stone, but if you get granular you might be able to find a few places where you can reduce costs. When it comes to spending categories tackle these ones first:

52 Week Savings Challenge Tip: Cut Expenses

Cell phone - your cell phone bill is one of the easier ones to reduce. Check what kind of service you have from your provider. If you have an unlimited service ask your self if you really need it by checking your statement. How many calls and texts are you actually making? Go back a few months to see the maximum amount you’ve made and then find a plan that will cover that. If you do need unlimited, it might make sense to see if they have a sub-brand that offers a cheaper option. For example, Verizon owns Visible, which has a cheaper unlimited monthly plan.
Internet/Cable - Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find better deals on internet service, especially since all of the companies tend to work together to keep their prices around the cost. However, you can potentially lower your cost by purchasing your own router. Did you know that if you get a router from your internet provider they charge you for it every month? As for cable, there are plenty of streaming services available that are cheaper that can provide both live streams and great movies and TV shows starting at $9.99.
Auto/Home Insurance - many people falsely believe that their insurance premiums are set in stone, but that’s not the case at all! You can and should shop around for rates to see if you can find anything better. For auto insurance, take defensive driving classes as these can reduce your premium.
Utilities - In about half the country you are able to shop around for the best natural gas and electric rates. If you don’t fall into that category, there are still plenty of ways to reduce your electricity and heating bills. Simple things like turning off the lights when you’re not using them can save you money. Even better, something like a programmable thermometer can reduce your bill by 25-50% during the summer and winter.
General Expenses - it’s all too easy to just spend $10 on takeout lunch here and $5 on some snacks there. The amounts seem small, but if you tally it up at the end of the month you likely spend quite a bit of money on miscellaneous expenditures. Really track your spending and see where you can potentially reduce costs. That doesn’t mean you have to forego restaurants or snacks, it just means you should be conscious and aware of your spending.

What to do with your savings?

So now that you’re on board with saving, what do you do with it? Well, that really depends on you. If you ask finance bloggers and writers, they will tell you to save up for an emergency fund, which isn’t a bad idea, especially now. However, if you’re not motivated by saving money just for the sake of it, then give yourself a goal. The goal could be anything from saving up for an extravagant vacation to buying an organic mattress. The choice is yours!

So where do you keep the money? It’s a good idea to start an entirely new bank account as you won’t accidentally spend that money. Find one that has a competitive savings rate so you’ll earn a little extra money every month. Also, avoid getting any debit cards or checks as this will only tempt you to break the proverbial piggy-bank.

Consider goals: Short-Term, Mid-Term, Long-Term Financial Goal

Once you’ve set up your savings account, you can figure out what you’re going to do with it. When deciding, try to figure out what your goal is. Is it short-term like saving up for a vacation or long-term like saving up for college? You can also put this towards other financial goals like renovating your home or saving for retirement.

A great idea to keep you motivated regardless of your goal is to create a vision board. Add in pictures, words, ideas, etc. that make you feel connected to your goal. You can even keep adding images as you find them. The more you can visualize your goal, the more likely you are to keep up your saving habit. This is especially important for long-term goals. Once you’ve put it together, place the board somewhere you pass by every day to remind yourself of why you are saving.

Challenge Accepted With The 52 Week Savings Plan

You don’t have to stop at the end of one year for the 52 Week Savings Challenge! Why not keep going and see how much you can save? Once you’ve gotten the hang of it, you’ll realize that saving has become second nature to you. Plus you get to watch your balance grow over time.

The best part about this challenge is that it’s flexible and can work for almost everyone. In addition, you’re also improving your budgeting skills. This might even push you to achieve even bigger financials goals down the line.

Jessica Lauren is Founder, contributing Author and Owner of Citrus Sleep. Citrus Sleep is an online publication that highlights brands, sleep products, women’s fashion, subscription services and ideas creating positive social change and promoting a healthy lifestyle. After spending nearly a decade working in PR and marketing for several brands and startups, Jessica knows what truly drives conversions, sold-out launches and guest posts.

Follow Jessica at @jessicalaurencs | Jessica Lauren