52-WEEK ENVELOPE CHALLENGE - SAVE $5,000 IN 1 YEAR EASILY!

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Overview

I’ve been doing a lot of writing on here about saving money lately. Specifically, I’ve been focusing on building out the site’s “Save & Invest” Category. This has had me thinking about more creative ways to jumpstart some savings goals. Enter the 52-week envelope challenge.

The 52-week envelope challenge is simple. Simply take 100 envelopes and label them $1-$100. Each week, you’ll select two envelopes to fill with that amount. This saves you $5,050 over the course of the year!

Let’s go into some detail on this challenge, and look at a variation as well.

52-Week Envelope Challenge Basics

The first thing you’ll want to do is get yourself 100 envelopes. I’d make a trip to the dollar store for this. After all, the point is to save money, not spend it.

The next step may take a minute, but you’re going to write a dollar amount on each envelope from $1-$100.

Now that you’re done with set up, it’s time to save! Each week for the next 52 weeks, you’ll pick two envelopes to fill with the dollar amount written on the envelopes. There are a couple of possible ways to go about this:

You may choose to put your envelopes in some sort of container and randomly select two envelopes per week.
You may purposely choose two envelopes each week based on the funds you have available.
Bonus Option: Mix it up week to week as needed

It’s also worth pointing out that there will actually be four weeks where you could potentially choose to only fill one envelope (100 envelopes into 52 weeks is not actually an even two envelopes weekly).

Alternatively, build in two weeks off.

52-Week Envelope Challenge Example

Let’s run out an example week.

Say you decide to draw your envelopes at random for our example. You pick the $14 envelope and the $64 envelope.

Put $14 in the first and $64 in the second.

You’ve just set aside $78 for this week!

Where Does The 52-Week Envelope Challenge Money Come From?

Okay, the example above looks easy and sounds nice, but maybe randomly pulling out $78 from your budget isn’t that easy for you.

No problem.

That’s one of the nice things about this method. Now you have a target.

Let’s take our example again. Maybe you draw your envelopes on Sunday morning. Now you know what to work toward by the end of the day Saturday. Hit those side hustles!

Just about anyone can earn that much money delivering food, shopping for people’s groceries, or teaching online in a week.

This is one of my favorite parts of this challenge. Giving yourself a realistic goal on a weekly basis breaks earning and saving this money down into manageable chunks that can be done almost entirely through some side gigs.

Find Great Extra Income Sources

Variation: The 25-Week Envelope Challenge

Want to take a vacation in June but not sure about how to pay for it? Or just not sure about those envelopes with dollar amounts over $50? No sweat. How does an easy $1,275 sound?

For this variation, you’ll just use 50 envelopes.

Label them with dollar amounts of $1-$50.

Again, choose two envelopes per week and fill with the corresponding dollar amounts.

In 25 weeks (6 months or so), you’ll have saved $1,275. Not bad. Definitely enough to cover some vacation expenses.

52-Week Envelope Challenge Goals

You’ll need some motivation to make this happen, of course. So, what are some things you might decide to work toward?

Did you know the max IRA contribution is (at the time of this writing) $6,000? You could almost max out a retirement fund just from this challenge!

How about freeing up some income by paying off debt? I’m willing to bet $5,000+ could go a long way there.

You get to pick your goals. But keep those goals in front of you and align them with your financial purpose to make this challenge that much more achievable.

Conclusion

So how does it work again?

Simply take 100 envelopes and label them $1-$100. Each week, you’ll select two envelopes to fill with that amount. This saves you $5,050 over the course of the year!

And that’s the 52-week envelope challenge.

Regardless of your money goals, you can “Bank on a Budget” to get you from where you are to where you want to be!

Simply take 100 envelopes and label them $1-$100. Each week, you’ll select two envelopes to fill with that amount. This saves you $5,050 over the course of the year!

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Alex

Hello, my name is Alex! I'm a public school teacher who has achieved some big financial goals just by getting control of my money using some simple strategies like using a monthly budget. Now I'd like to share what I've learned with you. Welcome to "Bank on a Budget!"