Participating in a money challenge is a great way to bolster your savings account. However, the popular 52-Week Savings Challenge can be intimidating, mainly because some of the weekly amounts can feel pretty high when you look at them on a chart. But, by breaking it down and starting small, you can accomplish the same thing without some of the stress. All you need to do is take it one nickel at a time.
The Origin of the 365 Day Money Challenge
Back in 2014, we decided to look for ways to make the 52-Week Savings Challenge a bit more accessible. Instead of large weekly deposits, participants only need to focus on small amounts each day.
This approach made the 365 Day Money Challenge a massive hit, especially since it’s relatively simple to adjust. If you want to save up more than $3,300 in a year, complete the challenge with nickels. If you don’t have that much to spare, you can use pennies and still save about $668.
How the Money Challenge Works
The premise of the 365 Day Money Challenge is simple. If you are using nickels, on day one you deposit $0.05 into your savings account. Then, you add $0.05 to your deposit on day two, making that deposit worth $0.10, bringing your total savings to $0.15.
On each subsequent day, you add a nickel to the previous day’s deposit. That means, on day 10, you deposit $0.50. On day 100, your deposit is $5.00. On the last day, number 365, your deposit is $18.40.
While the daily amounts seem small, they add up fast. At the end of the year, if you participate every single day, you’ll have a whopping $3,339.75 in your savings.
What Could You Do with $3,300?
Think about what you could do with over $3,300 each year. You could replace your living room furniture, buy a high-end computer, head out on a great vacation, or simply make Christmas shopping incredibly affordable.
Using the challenge to create or build your emergency fund is also a great decision. Similarly, $3,300 is a nice down payment on a vehicle or could make saving 20 percent down for the purchase of a home easier to manage.
If you want to help your child pay for college, $3,300 a year for a full 18 years is $59,400, not including interest. If you put the money into a 529 plan, the value will be much higher when it is time for your child to head to school.
Make It a Family Affair
While saving using the nickel strategy might be too much for your children, many kids can use the same plan and substitute pennies for nickels. With this approach, the largest deposit is just $3.65, which can be more manageable for youngsters. But, they still get to save up a decent amount of cash, having around $668 when the challenge is over.
If you want to instill good savings habits in your children, consider having them start with the penny challenge or another money challenge for kids. Then, as they get older, they can transition to the nickel challenge.
Additionally, there is nothing to say that you can’t increase the level of challenge yourself. If your income can support it, consider using dimes instead of nickels. You’ll be happy you did.
Using a Money-Saving App as an Alternative
If you prefer to try to save money with an app, you might want to consider using one like Digit. All you have to do is install Digit and it’ll analyze your savings account balances. It will automatically place small withdrawals into a savings account for you – money you probably won’t even notice. Once you activate the app, it requires almost no effort and you’ll be on your way to building your savings account. Check it out at Digit.
Do you have a favorite money challenge? Share it in the comments below.
Read More:
- Alternatives to the 52 Week Money Challenge
- Save Nearly $500 with the 30 Day Money Challenge
- Try the No Spending Challenge
This could actually work!
It doesn’t make sense. 365 x 5 does not come to 3,339.75.
I had to look at it closely the first time I saw this. You aren’t merely adding 5 cents a day, you are adding the dollar amount plus an additional 5 cents each day (as you get up into the dollar amounts). You start out 5, 10, 15 cents but when you get to the dollar amount, you now will add 12.05 on Monday, 12.10 on Tuesday, 12.15 on Wed, etc.
Thank you
There is a problem in the chart… From 2.55 to 2.65 ? Where is 2.60? They skip this…
I agree. I saved dimes in a 2-liter bottle this year. It amounted to $500. Now, I’m excited to try this.
But if you project that you can save $18 at the end of the year, why not do it in January too? then you’ll save $6570 [$18×365].
If you can do direct deposit through work, then one easy way to save a little bit at a time is to have your company split your paycheck between two accounts at your bank. If you are paid every other week and want to do $10 per day, then just have that second account get $140 of your paycheck and the rest in to your regular account that you pay bills from.
Or, if this savings is for your long-term future rather than building a near-term vacation fund or whatever, see if your company has a 401k you can send money to from your paycheck. Benefits there:
(1) Many companies will match or partially match your contributions
(2) It will be stock/bond markets that over the long term do better than your bank or your mattress
(3) You will reduce you taxable income so you technically get some back via lower tax withholdings
I like this one just as much as I liked the 365 day penny one where that one saves you nearly $668 in 1 Year! This nickel one is really good for people becoming more serious about saving money… Sure the highest amount may be $18.40 on the last day of the year but you can always do this backwards too and save $18.40 on the first day and work your way down to saving just 5 cents on the last day of the year, plus having a nest egg of over $3,300 in a year sounds exciting as well.
Can I ask if the math is right??
Because if you save $18.40 that is 368 nickels… and there is only 365 or 366 days in a year, never 368? Maybe I’m wrong but if a year has 365 days… 365 nickels = 0.05 x 365 = $18.25 and if it’s a leap year like this year 366 nickels is 0.05 x 366 = $18.30!
I really want to try this challenge tho it would still net you just over $3,200 in a year!
If you read the little bit of text at least semi attentively you will notice that with each day you add an extra nickel to the previous amount you were saving. This is linear for everyday until you reach 365. So for example on the third day you are putting 15 cents into your savings not a nickel.
Does everyone not realize that this challenge is daily. I live on a very meager paycheck, and there is no way I could do this when you have to put aside $15.00, $16.00 or more a day. This adds up to more than my paycheck. I have tried the penny challenge also, and it is the same. Some months you are putting close to a hundred dollars a month aside.
I live on less than $8,000.00 (eight thousand a year) a year, and there is no way that I could do that.
These challenges all sound good, until you get to those big amounts every day. Then most people, including people that make more than myself, (which is just about everyone) can’take make it work.
Try Googling Rick Snider of Bradenton FL. He collects loose change that he finds on his daily walks, and it averages out to about 5 or 6 dollars per day. If you can walk and live close enough to the kinds of businesses you are likely to find spare change, you could double your annual income.
Found the article about Rick Snider.
Bradenton man donates $21,495 that he found in spare change over 10 years to local animal rescue
By KATE IRBY – kirby@bradenton.com
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, the old saying goes. In this case, thousands of dollars of people’s spare change became Rick Snyder’s $21,495 donation to the Gulf Shore Animal League.
“I’ve always liked animals. I’ve been taking care of feral cats for years and I started noticing a lot of change laying around,” Snyder said. “So I started picking it up and keeping track of it.”
Snyder would go around at car washes and dig change out of vacuums and vending machines during his daily walks to care for feral cats in the area. He goes out around 4:30 a.m. every day and spends about four hours on those trips.
He’s done that for more than 10 years, finding an average of $5.60 in change per day. He said he walks between 45 and 48 miles per week.
Snyder said he also uses those trips to collect towels that have been thrown away, wash them and donate them, and he picks up plastic bottles out of the trash to take them home and recycle them.
“It astounds me how wasteful people are,” Snyder said.
Volunteers from the Gulf Shore Animal League came to his residence Tuesday morning to help him gather 2,500 pounds of coins.
Gulf Shore’s main focus is taking care of cats. The volunteer organization, exclusively funded through grants and donations, adopts 250 cats per year and spays and neuters about 2,000 per year to cut down on homelessness and overpopulation.
Cheryl Wade, president of Gulf Shore, said the $21,495, which is the largest donation it has received from an individual contributor, would mean a lot for what they’re able to do. She brought out a nearly newborn kitten named Blair to illustrate what Gulf Shore does.
The rest of the article is here:
Read more here: https://www.bradenton.com/news/local/article34734690.html#storylink=cpy
This was such an amazing share. Thank you so much!!
I also live pay check to pay check and I started the 365 penny challenge last year. There were days I couldn’t put in the $2 to $3 per day and on those days I just skipped it until I could add $3 or $2 a day. I was behind, but it worked. I went on a weekend staycation with a friend in October and used this saving plan and saved a little over $400. I’m using the saving plan again this year.
I’ve had the same problem when I tried to follow it as written. Had more success by printing the chart off and marking through what I could as I could. I tried to do at least a couple of the big ones per week, instead of starting with the smallest and working my way up. For example if I had an extra $15 dollars one week I’d do a couple of the $3 amounts, a couple $2 amounts, a $1 amount a few of the change ones. Worked better for me than trying to do it as written. Our family had some unexpected medial bills, so we didn’t finish the challenge, but still had several hundred extra dollars at Christmas, which was our goal anyway. Best of luck!
Granted this was with the penny challenge not the nickel one, but same principal would apply. It doesn’t have to be perfectly done to add up!
I love these challenges iv been doing it for 2 years now starting with the penny now im doing the 5cent such a big help come christmas.
But id like to add for the people who keep harping on about putting it into savings accounts and how some work places will help out etc.these saving challenges are for the people otherwise unemployed or in low paid jobs like patrica above!
There are no “real rules” to doing it!its really so you can maybe appriciate the small money you have and save “what you can” if you cant save more then $/€1 a day then then just save continue with $/€1 a day, if you miss a day no biggie just pick up again tomorrow where you left off.
One little trick i find helps is once i get home after work/ shopping is i empty my pockets and wallet and put all my small change (5c, 10c etc) into a seperate jar (€1/€2 coins) into another and every morning take from them jars the ammount i need.
These challenges are just a bit of fun just try it for 1 month and see how you get on then go and enjoy what you saved that month and start all over again.
You’ll be glad you did