Four Exceptionally Easy Ways to Save $1,000 This Year

saving money

The hardest part of anything is the part where you have to actually take action and get started. I promise you that I feel this way every single day. I linger over that first cup of coffee like it’s my business, not in the mood to get up and start getting ready an hour after my shower ended and I worked for 45 minutes. I don’t want to. When it’s time for me to come home from taking my kids to school and get started on work, I don’t want to. I will look for any reason to do something else so that I don’t feel as if I’m chained to my desk all day long. Then I bite the bullet, start and feel amazing about it.

In fact, I find that I don’t want to get up while I’m on a roll and in a good place with work at any given point. The hard part is simply getting started. It’s not difficult when you think about it, but it’s difficult when you have to do it and you’re not in the mood. I believe we call this a lack of motivation, but it is what it is. One of the most difficult things most adults do is begin saving. The statistics regarding savings accounts and grown adults are shocking in a way that I simply cannot even begin to describe.

We want you to have a savings account. We want you to have that emergency fund to fall back on when things go awry. We want you to learn how to save for that big vacation, or how to save for that amazing new house you want to call your own. We want you to learn to do these things, which is why we’re going to do the hard part for you; get started saving. We have a few suggestions that we think are going to make it far easier for you to get into the savings mindset; let us know if they help you once you are able to save that first $1,000.

The $20 plan

This one is simple if you are not looking to start big or if you cannot afford to start big. Let’s say you want to save $1,000 so that at Christmas you are not overwhelmed and bombarded with bills. The best way to do that is to simply take an envelope and designate it for $20 bills. Every week, grab a $20 bill and put it in that envelope. By the end of the year, you’ll have $1000 saved and you’ll be feeling pretty good about it.

The $3 plan

This one is basically the same thing as the one we just discussed, but sometimes it’s easier to handle it when you break it down even more. Take 3 $1 bills every single day and put it away. That’s all you have to do. By the end of the year, you’ll have a little over $1,000 in your savings account and it cost you less than the latte you pick up every morning at your favorite coffee shop. It’s not a bad way to save money by doing it in a very small amount. Breaking it down like this into small amounts makes it seem like a much more doable plan, and a much more doable goal for so many of us.

The 52-week challenge

If your budget really is not big, try a small money challenge every week. This is a good one for you if you have very little to begin with and need to work your way up to saving a little at a time. This plan will net you a little more than $1300 for the year. All you have to do is save the same amount of money as it is the week of the year. For example, the first week you save one dollar. The second week you save two dollars. The third you save $3. You do that all year long. By the end of the year, you’re still only spending $52 per week. Every week it’s just one dollar more than the week before, so it doesn’t seem like much to add to the budget, but it is a significant savings.

The 12-week challenge

If you need to save $1,000 in a quick manner, this is the plan for you. This one is going to take a bit of discipline for many, but it’s worth it. With this plan, it’s a bit more complicated so here we go:

Week 1 – $60

Week 2 – $75

Week 3 – $95

Week 4 – $100

Week 5 – $65

Week 6 – $75

Week 7 – $95

Week 8 – $100

Week 9 – $65

Week 10 – $75

Week 11 – $95

Week 12 – $100

By the end of week 12, you will have $1000. It doesn’t seem like much, but each of these helpful savings plans is enough to save you $1,000 without really putting forth much effort or even feeling as if you have to budget or forgo all the fun in life. Good luck!

Photo by Getty Images

Comments

Leave a Reply

Loading…

0