Finances have been - and will continue to be - tight over the next 12 months and many of us would like to try and put money aside for a range of different reasons.
You could be looking to boost your emergency fund, prepare for a big life milestone such as getting married or saving towards a house deposit.
Whatever your reason, it's hard to do - particularly over recent years as our monthly budgets have been tightened.
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One way many have managed to build a cash pot is by committing to a savings challenge. These give you a map of how much you should be putting away and when in order to build a cash pot.
Here we have listed a range of different savings challenges you could take on this year.
Monday to Friday savings challenge - £780
This one requires you to put some cash away five days each week. You start by saving £1 on Monday then increase this amount by £1 a day until Friday - so £2 on Tuesday, £3 on Wednesday, £4 on Thursday and £5 on Friday. In total, you would save £15 a week and over the year, this adds up to an impressive £780. If you only do half of this challenge or do it every other week, you would still save £390 by the end of the year.
Monday to Sunday savings challenge - £1,456
This one is a harder version of the Monday to Friday challenge, as it includes every single day of the week.
The principle is the same, so you save £1 on Monday and then increase this amount by £1 a day - but this time, you go all the way through to Sunday when you save £7. You would save £28 each week through this challenge, which would add up to £1,456 by the end of the year. If you complete half of it, you would put away £728.
365 Day Savings Challenge - save £366
This likely is the simplest challenge to take on as it requires you to put away some money every single day of the year. You can choose how much you can save each day and repeat that throughout the year. So if you choose to put away £1 a day then you will come out with £365 by the end of the year - however, 2024 is a leap year with the extra date of February 29 - so this year you could save £366.
If you wanna go big or go home and you choose to put away £5 a day then you could end up with a cash pot worth £1,80 by the end of the year.
1p savings challenge - £671
This challenge is another daily savings challenge but this one starts with putting away 1p and adding an extra penny each day throughout the year. So on January 1, you put away a single penny into a savings account - you can always put it into a jar if you want to be a little old school - and then on January 2 you put away 2p, and on January 3 it's 3p and so on.
Finally, on the final day of the year, you would transfer over £3.65 which will give you an eventual total of £667.95. However, in 2024, the leap year makes it a little as on the final day of the year you will be putting £3.66 into your savings pot. Due to this extra day, your savings total will be £671.61.
You can also do this one in reverse too - so on January 1, you put away £3.66 and do down from there. This approach means you will be putting less money away at the end of the year in December when you may need it most.
52 week savings challenge - save £1,378
With this challenge, you increase the amount you save by £1 each week. So the first week in January you would save £1, then the second week you put away £2, all the way to the final week of December where you save £52.
The most you could potentially save is £1,378 if you complete the challenge - this doesn't change with the leap year in 2024. If you don't make it all the way, you could potentially build up a savings pot worth £351 if you commit for six months.
You can also adapt this challenge and make it 26 weeks instead. This would be ideal for someone who is paid fortnightly. The end saving outcome is the same but how it works is a little more complicated.
The idea is that you start on week two and save £3 (so that’s the £1 from week one, and the £2 from week two), and then in week four, you’ll save £7 (week three and four). This may make it harder to follow, but it can help spread out your savings. If you are going to do this one you may want to make a plan of how much you need to put away each time to help you stick to it.
£5 savings challenge - save £6,890
The fiver challenge is an ambitious one and may suit someone who is saving for a milestone. The £5 saving challenge involves increasing the amount you put away by £5 each week. So on the first week of January, you'll save £5, on the second you put away £10, on the third week it'll be £15 - all the way up to week 52 at £260. If you complete this challenge, you could save an impressive £6,890 by the end of the year. If you make it halfway you still would put away a sizable cash pot worth £1,755.
