Try a $5 Challenge to Bulk Your Savings! (2024)

FAQs

What is the $5 savings challenge? ›

You simply save every single $5 bill you get. So, whenever you get change you will be hoarding those $5 bills like a chipmunk collecting nuts for winter. You can use a piggy bank or simply make a $5 challenge envelope to keep your cold hard cash in.

All this challenge requires is for you to stash away every $5 bill you get as change. That's it. If you're paying for something and the cashier hands you back a bill with Lincoln's solemn face, don't use it to buy coffee or a cheap lunch from the drive thru. Commit that $5 bill to your savings account.

Here are a few more ways to save $5,000 by the end of 2023: Save $96.16 every week. Save $192.31 every two weeks. Save $416.67 every month.

The 5-dollar rule is basically this rule that if something is less than 5 dollars or it's going to save me less than 5 dollars, if the amount that I'm worried about is $5 or less just do it. Don't even think about it. This is a rule—you might change this over time.

Back in 2009, Stanford prof Tina Seelig split students in the school of engineering into teams and gave them an envelope containing $5. Teams had only two hours to generate as much money as possible. Each team would get three minutes to present their project to the entire class.

The 100-envelope challenge is pretty straightforward: You take 100 envelopes, number each of them and then save the corresponding dollar amount in each envelope. For instance, you put $1 in “Envelope 1,” $2 in “Envelope 2,” and so on. By the end of 100 days, you'll have saved $5,050.

Match each week's savings amount with the number of the week in your challenge. In other words, you'll save $1 the first week, $2 the second week, $3 the third week, and so on until you put away $52 in week 52.

The plan is refreshingly easy, even for the math-challenged: set aside $3 in the first week and put it into a savings account. Then add another $3 each week after, so $6 is saved in week two, $9 in week three, and so on.

How to make your own savings challenge? ›

The 52-week challenge

You'll start small, putting aside just $1 the first week. Then, you'll save an additional dollar each week moving forward – $2 in week two, $3 in week three and so on, until you stash away $52 in the final week of the year. When you add up all those weeks, you'll have put aside a total of $1,378.

3 Months Money Saving Challenge Book

Every week for 12 weeks, choose the amount you want to save then, save the amount of money indicated in each shape, every time you do you color in the square so you know you did that one already, and place the funds on your envelope!

The 5p money saving challenge is simple. You increase the amount you save everyday by 5p. So, starting with 5p, then the next day 10p and 15p and so on. If you continue this for a whole year, by the end you will have saved almost £3,400.

How about this instead - the 50/15/5 rule? It's our simple rule of thumb for saving and spending: aiming to allocate no more than 50% of take-home pay to essential expenses, 15% of pre-tax income to retirement savings, and 5% of take-home pay to short term savings.

The five dollar bill savings plan is simply the act of removing and saving $5 bills whenever one lands in your wallet. What I've discovered is that this practice is a simple and painless way to save. I try to pay cash for as many expenses as possible.