Money challenges are an integral part of the Middle Path Finance tool box. They come in many forms, but all are designed to help you focus.
Money challenges can be short-term, extreme ways to lower expenses and beef up savings, or they can be longer-term tools to help you be more conscientious about spending and making money.
No Spend Month. This is a one-month money crash diet. Everyone does this a little differently. My family had a No Spend Month in November 2008. We allowed ourselves only $400, for everything that wasn't a recurring monthly bill. Gas, groceries, entertainment, any unexpected expenses, etc. all came out of this amount. (Mortgage, student loan, electricity, etc. wasn't included.) For motivation, we added a carrot-- dinner at an expensive restaurant if we stayed on budget-- and a stick. If we failed, we had to send an amount equal to what we overspent to a charity that stood for everything we hated. We finished the month with $12 left, even after hosting Thanksgiving dinner.
No Spend Months are a quick, effective way to reign in spending and to beef up an emergency fund or savings account.
Zero Dollar Days. Can you go a whole day not spending money? Great, now see how many Zero Dollar Days you can have in a month. A variation on this is the No Drive Day. Save precious gas money and CO2 emissions by not driving. Walk, bus, bike, or stay home instead.
The $20 Challenge. This challenge idea comes from SavingAdvice.com. Once again, everyone does this a little differently. Begin with $20, either in a savings account or piggy bank. Then, come up with new ways to make money or to save money. Then you add that money to your challenge money. Making money could mean selling on eBay or Etsy, or having a yard sale. You could add change you found on the sidewalk or if you use a 50 cent coupon at the store, you could put 50 cents in the challenge jar. The concept is simple. This is a useful challenge. It gets you thinking about ways to save and make money, while showing that small amounts really do add up. At the end of the year, you can dedicate that money to savings or use it to pay off debt.
The $20 Restaurant Challenge. If you love to eat our and refuse to give it up, try this way to save money. Vow to only spend $20 or less every time you and your honey eat out. You can go a couple dollars over due to the tip (you don't want to give the waitron a cheapache). You'll likely cut down on your restaurant bills without living like a recluse.
The Grocery Challenge.The goal of the grocery challenge is to gradually decrease your expenditures for groceries and eating out from month to month, until you reach a predetermined long-term goal. For instance, your goal could be to reduce your monthly food spending by 40 percent in 6 months, through more careful shopping, coupons, and eating out less. You would start small, aiming to save 10 percent in month one, 15 percent in month two, etc., until you met your goal.
Eat at Home Week. This is another variation of the grocery challenge. If you are like me, you love to eat out. This challenge forces you to stay home and cook, pack lunches for work, and utilize your leftovers. It's not too daunting, because it only lasts a week. But, that can be long enough to help you break the take-out habit and save some money. If you need inspiration, get a cookbook from the library the week before and use it to plan a menu.
The "Lights Out" Electricity Challenge. This is a combination "green" and money challenge. The goal is to reduce your electricity consumption by 10 to 30 percent monthly or annually. Last year's utility bills will help you set realistic goals. This can be a simple challenge: replacing lightbulbs with CFLs, turning out lights when you aren't in the room, etc. But it can be tough if you are already eco-conscious. Therein lies the challenge: coming up with new and different ways to cut usage without living like a caveperson.
The "Green Thumb" Challenge. This challenge is for the gardeners out there. The idea is to see how much money you can save by growing your own fruits and vegetables in your home garden. You'll need to keep track of how much you spend on seeds, etc., and how many pounds of each item you grow during the season, then compare that to what you would have paid at the store. This sounds like a lot of record-keeping, but is a fun, healthy, and satisfying challenge. To take it further, you can set goals for how many pounds of produce you want to grow and make an effort to preserve, freeze, or can so nothing goes to waste.
The Brown Bag Challenge. How much do you spend eating out during the workweek? If you are like me, a pretty penny. I would go out to lunch every day, at $7 to $10 a pop. Throw in a morning coffee a few times a week at $4 a pop and that adds up to a lot of money. Donna Freeman at MSN Money proposed the Brown Bag Challenge as a way to save money by packing your lunch every day for a month. Every time you don't go out to eat, transfer $5 in your online savings account. By the end of the month you will have a decent chunk of change, all for making a reasonable change in your habits.
Comments