The Twice a Month Chart for the 52 Week Money Challenge
By Jeffrey Strain, January 5th, 2014 | 4 Comments »
Twice a Month Challenge (click on image to print)
This was actually a bit more difficult than it appears. Much like with the monthly money challenge, 24 amounts means that there are 4 extra weeks which need to be added to the challenge. The standard way to do this would be to add the extra week when it happened throughout the year, but this made for a strange challenge. Doing it this way meant that some of the earlier months required a higher payment than the month after them. I decided the best way to put it together was to add the extra 4 weeks at the beginning when the amount needed to place toward the challenge was small.
Even doing it this way caused an earlier month to be a larger amount than a later month, so I ended up switching it around to make the flow better. In other words, it was a mess, but I kept with the small to large flow intent of the original 52 week money challenge. I also made sure that when all the numbers are added up, it still come to the same amount of $1,378. While certainly not perfectly done on how it should have been created according to the bi-monthly calendar, I believe it fits more closely to the intent of the original challenge.
This, of course, is if you follow the standard version of the challenge. Personally I believe that the alternate version works much better for these challenges since it helps alleviate the issue of the largest amounts needing to be paid toward the end of the year when many people are strapped for money due to the holidays. In the alternate version, the amounts are all listed at the bottom, and you choose the most you can pay for that particular pay period. This gives you more flexibility, and allows you to pay the larger amounts when money isn’t quite so tight.
Twice a Month Alternative Challenge (click on image to print)
Balance the 52 Week Money Challenge With Passive Savings
Finally, if you want a more passive approach to saving money, consider using a savings application like acorns.com or digit.co. Digit.co in particular is a terriffic application for passive savers. Pretty much how the application works is you sign up online. The software analyzes your checking account balances, and then deducts a small amount which won’t cause you bounce any checks. The idea is you just passively let it run for a year or so, then check the balance. Its a great passive accompaniment to the active approach described here. Click here to check out digit.co.
Explore Options To The 52 Week Challenge
Finally, there are a number of different options for those wanting to attempt a 52 week challenge. Looking through them all can help solidify which would best work for your personality and saving habits. Below you can find a number of different variation to consider.
52 Week Alternatives
More 52 Week Alternatives
52 Week Standard
52 Week Variation
52 Week Make Money
52 Week Kids
52 Week 2015 Edition
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Thanks for the chart, it has greatly simplified the math for me. A couple notes on your challenge:
– bi-monthly means every two months. Perhaps semi monthly?
– on rows 17 and 18, it appears that the balances have been transposed.
Jeff
Good catch on the transposed numbers — I will fix that when I get a chance.
Bi-monthly actually means both twice a month or every two months (yes, quite confusing)
Fixed
Thanks for this! I’m changing jobs so I’ll be going from weekly to bi-monthly pay. This will be super easy to follow. I really like the alternative version too. As long as each box gets saved, you’re still meeting the goal. Thanks again!