52-Week Money Challenge

One of the things that I am trying to teach Sophia and Olivia is the value of saving money. Whenever they receive a gift or earn money, half of that goes into savings. I'm hoping that by learning this skill early in life that it continues well into their adulthood and makes life significantly easier for them.

One of the ideas I recently found on Pinterest that led to WFMY News 2 was for a 52-Week Money Challenge in which you can save almost $1,400 by the end of the year.

According to the website, "The concept is simple. Each week, you deposit the number of that week of the year into a savings plan. For example, the first week of 2014, you would deposit $1; the second week, $2; and so on and so on. By the end of the year, you will have saved close to $1,400."

There's a handy 52-Week Money Challenge Chart that can be printed out to help track how much to save each week and the total amount that has been saved each week throughout the year.

Why is saving so important and why does this challenge seem intriguing? According to the WFMY News 2 website, "Financial experts advise people to save six months to a year of their annual income. Saving that amount can be overwhelming for a lot of Americans who don't by nature save money for the future. The 52-week savings plan is less intimidating and is fairly easy to do. Besides, everyone loves a challenge, right?"

A jar with $28 saved so far this year.

So, here it is already Week 7 in 2014. So far, there's $28 saved in the jar by following the plan:

WEEK #        AMOUNT TO SAVE      TOTAL SAVED
1                                    $1                                $1
2                                    $2                                $3
3                                    $3                                $6
4                                    $4                                $10
5                                    $5                                $15
6                                    $6                                $21
7                                    $7                                $28

At some point, I'm going to open an account dedicated just to this challenge. It's better to have it safe at a bank and accruing some interest than to have it sitting at home.

It's not too late to start, if this sounds like a good challenge to undertake in 2014. There are plenty of things that can be done with $1,400 at the end of the year...including investing that money or continuing to build upon it in each subsequent year. It's better to start somewhere than not to start at all!