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The biweekly money-saving challenge requires putting away cash for 26 weeks or every other week for one year. The amount you choose to save can vary based on your goals and comfort level. This method not only helps you accumulate savings, it also encourages you to develop consistent savings habits over time.

Types of Biweekly Money-Saving Challenges

If you’re paid bi-weekly, the biweekly money-savings challenge might suit your lifestyle best. It’s budget friendly, too. So if you have a little or a lot of change after bills, you can adjust this plan to meet your needs.

26-Week or Biweekly Savings Challenge

There are many versions of this challenge. You can start with a small savings amount, like $3 or $4. If you choose the first amount, put $3 away in savings the first week. Every two weeks, add an extra $3 to the last amount you put away. So, the first week, you’ll put away $3. The second week, $6. The third week, $9. At the end of the 26-week challenge, starting with $3, you’ll have $1,053 in savings.

Or you might prefer a fixed savings goal, like $5,000 or $10,000. If that’s you, put away between $193 to $385 every two weeks. You’ll end up with $5,018 or $10,010, respectively.

Need help monitoring your finances? A money tracker can help you keep tabs on your spending and your credit score.

How to Choose a Money-Saving Challenge

Choose a financial challenge that works with your budget and meets your goals. Setting goals and starting small can be a big win in many ways. It lays the building blocks for long-term savings habits that last over time.

Find a challenge that is budget-friendly. The amount you put away can be as little as a nickel on day one. If you have more change to spare, you can put away more money. Some challenges suggest multiple savings accounts or stashing cash. If you choose to open multiple accounts, keep in mind that interest-bearing accounts typically earn some returns, are FDIC-insured, and can be accessed for emergencies or planned expenses.

You might have specific financial goals, like an emergency or wedding fund. Or you might want to build a habit of saving. Whatever your goal, a challenge can help you commit to saving $500 to $15,000 in a set amount of time — and potentially build a good habit in the process.

Common Money-Saving Challenges

Money-saving challenges are smart saving strategies or smart spending strategies, depending on the process. They can show you how to save up money fast or how to save money, period.

And there’s no shortage of creativity. Google has about hundreds of thousands of pages worth of money-saving challenges. You can even try saving $2,023 in the 2024 money-saving challenge. Below is a list of money challenges to get you started.

100 Envelope Challenge

Number 100 envelopes from 1-100. Each day, put in the amount of cash listed on the envelope. By the end of 100 days, you’ll have $5,050 stashed away.

In a variation, 100 days can be broken down into 13 weeks for easier deposits. The last week is four days. Every other week, set aside the week’s total of savings. Below’s chart lays out the amounts:

Holiday Helper Fund

The holidays sneak up on us quicker than we think. If you’re planning your annual budget, set up an account or an envelope for gifts. Setting aside an extra fund for gifts, whether holiday, wedding, or general, keeps money out of sight and mind until you need it.

On the week of January 1, set aside $20 every week, or $40 every two weeks. By December 25th, you’ll have $1,040.

52-Week Savings Challenge

The concept is simple. You set aside $1 at week one. Then $2 at week two. By the end of 52 weeks, you’ll have saved $1,378. You can also start with $2 or $10 on week one, $4 or $20 on week two, and so on. You’ll end up with $2,756 for the $2 challenge or $13,780 for the $10 challenge.

Another variation keeps the weekly savings contribution a fixed amount, which can be particularly helpful for smaller budgets. For example, you can put away $10 a week to end up with $520 at the end of the challenge.

The No Spend Challenge

Brunching on Sunday? Maybe not if you’re on this plan.

Pick a week or weekend and spend money on only necessities during that time frame. It’ll give you a chance to be creative with your time on limited resources.

Instead of eating out, try a new recipe at home. Instead of grabbing a new pair of shoes, dig deeper into your closet. You set your own time limit, so you can try it until you notice a change in your accounts!

Cash Only for a Month Challenge

A 2024 Forbes Advisor survey found that people tend to spend more with plastic, if given the option. It even stimulates the part of your brain associated with reward, pleasure, and addiction.

A cash diet can help stave overspending. Leave your cards at home when you go out and bring the amount of cash you decide to spend. You can look at the categories in your budget where you tend to overspend, like entertainment or clothes, and set aside cash for those categories. You can only spend the cash allotted for those categories.

Recommended: Does Net Worth Include Home Equity

The 365-Day Nickel-Saving Challenge

If you have a nickel to spare, you can do this challenge. On day one, put a nickel in a jar. On day two, put in 10 cents in the jar. On the third day, add 15 cents. By day 365, you’ll be adding $18.40 — to a total of $3,339.75 in your savings. You won’t have to put away more than $20 in a day and $130 in a week for the entire challenge.

30-Day Budget Preparedness Challenge

It helps to have a map for where you’re going. The same is true with spending.

Challenge yourself to a budget. First, download a budget planner like a spreadsheet template or a budget planner app. Then, go through each category and add the amount you’d like to or must spend in each (such as housing, groceries, entertainment, etc).

Knowing how much to spend before you go out can help improve your planning and control your spending. For example, if you allocate $400 a month to groceries, you can plan it by spending $100 a week. If you don’t spend it all, you can put it in savings.

Money-Saving Challenge Potential Savings

Taking on one of these challenges can help you boost your savings anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000.

But goal-setting will help you determine how much you want to save. If it’s $20,000 in two years, try the bi-weekly savings challenge. If you want to have $1,000 in your account, shoot for the 52-Week Savings Challenge. It’s a fun, concrete way to start.

If spending less is your goal, a challenge can help you cut bad habits like overspending. Setting up a budget and spending cash (not plastic) can help. Some challenges can help function as a monitor if paying off debt is your goal.

Whatever your goal is, these challenges are practical journeys that can pay off.

The Takeaway

A money-saving challenge can be a fun way to build a savings account. It can motivate you to spend less and save more. It can be a concrete demonstration of how small change can add up.

One of the more popular ones is the biweekly money-saving challenge. You can put away an amount you can afford, like $4, and increase it by $4 each week. Or you can set a goal of $5,000 and aim to set aside about $193 each week. It’s an easy plan that can adapt to many situations.

Best of all, you come away with stronger budgeting skills, like saving and prioritizing debt payoffs. These skills could help you make more fiscally responsible decisions. That way, when life happens, you’ll be better prepared.

Take control of your finances with SoFi. With our financial insights and credit score monitoring tools, you can view all of your accounts in one convenient dashboard. From there, you can see your various balances, spending breakdowns, and credit score. Plus you can easily set up budgets and discover valuable financial insights — all at no cost.

FAQ

What is the 100 envelope challenge?

This is a popular 100-day challenge. Number 100 envelopes 1-100. For each day, add the amount of cash to the envelope’s number listed on it. For example, add $1 to the envelope labeled 1, $5 to the envelope labeled $5, and so forth. By the end of the challenge, you’ll end up with $5,050.

What is the most popular money-saving challenge in 2024?

There is no top biller for popular money-saving challenges, but the 52-Week Savings challenge is mentioned across many results in a Google search.

How much money do you save with the 52-week challenge?

If you follow the original plan of starting with $1 on week one, then $2 on week two, $3 on week three, and so forth, you’ll end up with $1,378. Other variations involve changing the starting amount. For instance, you can start with $5 on week one, $10 on week two, until you have $6,890 put away.

Photo credit: iStock/Rawpixel

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Many Americans struggle to save money, but it’s generally worth the effort to do so since there can be serious downsides to not stashing away cash. Those consequences can range from going into debt, facing financial hardship after losing your job, and not being able to achieve your aspirations, like homeownership.

There are a variety of strategies that may be helpful in saving more money, and it may be useful to put together a simple budget and set some savings goals. If all else fails, you may even want to consult with a financial professional, because neglecting to save can lead to some undesired outcomes, as noted.

The Importance of Saving Money

To help you get motivated to put money in the bank, here are a dozen dangers or potential consequences related to not saving money. They may help you understand why it’s best to put away cash and motivate you to tuck some into a savings account.

1. Going Into Debt

Without a savings cushion, any expense — from an unexpected car repair to paying for your child’s college education — can put you in debt. In addition, while credit cards and loans are convenient ways to afford more than your bank account, you pay more in the long run because of interest and loan fees.

Since debt often costs more than the actual expense, you can essentially save a considerable amount of money by plumping up your piggy bank. You can try easy ways to save, such as creating a simple budget or automating savings, to put aside a few dollars a month before you can spend it. These moves can ensure that you’ll be using savings instead of debt to pay for your upcoming expenses.


💡 Quick Tip: Want a simple way to save more everyday? When you turn on Roundups, all of your debit card purchases are automatically rounded up to the next dollar and deposited into your online savings account.

2. Having a Social Life Can Be Nonexistent

Spending time with your friends and family are likely on the list of things you enjoy most in life. But a full social calendar may put you in a sticky financial situation if you haven’t saved anything. From movie dates to happy hours to ball games, these expenses can add up.

No matter your income level, how much money you save each paycheck can make the difference between having a nonexistent social life and a happening one.

3. Life Being More Stressful

Most Americans say money is a major stressor in their lives. When you think about it, failing to save can make you feel stuck or overwhelmed. Your personal, financial, and professional life can suffer because a lack of savings has cut off your options.

Achieving your goals, financial and otherwise, may be a struggle without savings to propel you forward. The importance of saving money goes beyond paying an unexpected bill; it can affect your daily quality of life.

4. Not Having the Money for an Emergency

You’ll find many articles, resources, and financial professionals advising you to set aside an emergency fund. Life is expensive and doesn’t always go as planned. So, saving in advance helps you manage life’s unexpected costs.

For example, building an emergency fund might be a better choice than splurging if you get a raise. You’ll thank yourself later when, say, your furnace goes out or you wind up with a major medical bill. Typically, money experts recommend having at least three to six months’ worth of basic expenses salted away in an emergency or rainy day fund.

5. Not Being Able to Celebrate Events

Life can be full of amazing milestones like getting married, starting a family, or graduating from college. Unfortunately, celebrating these life events with your family often takes substantial cash. Not being able to recognize these events the way you’d like to is another one of the many dangers of not saving money. The lack of a financial cushion could also lead you to skip, say, a friend’s destination wedding.

Although you could put your celebration on your credit card, you run the risk of going into debt. This will likely cost more over the long run since you have to pay for interest. In other words, you might still be paying it off for years to come.

6. Not Having a Viable Option if You Are Fired

No one plans on getting fired; however, it’s always possible to lose your job unexpectedly. Financial emergencies like this are an important reason to save. Saving can give you security during this kind of a crisis. If you don’t have some cash available, you might have to look into financially downsizing.

This underscores the importance of saving money from your salary when you are employed. You might consider having a small amount automatically transferred from your checking account into savings on payday.

As mentioned above, you should save at least three months of your expenses in an emergency fund. This way, you can have a solid safety net if you get laid off or are temporarily disabled and can’t work for an extended period.


💡 Quick Tip: Want to save more, spend smarter? Let your bank manage the basics. It’s surprisingly easy, and secure, when you open an online bank account.

7. Not Having an Inheritance for Your Children

If you’re a parent or plan to be one, you likely want to give your kids a leg up in life. An inheritance can help your children or heirs to build their nest eggs and meet life’s expenses without stress.

Having both savings and an estate plan can be a lasting, life-changing gift to those who matter to you most. These assets can serve to eliminate the possibility of financial legal challenges for your family. That said, being unable to leave a legacy is a consequence of not saving money.

8. Not Being Able to Buy a Home

Many people hope to buy a home one day, but you’ll probably need some cash saved up to initiate the purchase.

In many cases, you may need a 20% down payment to qualify for most conventional mortgages. Buying a home also usually involves other expenses, such as closing costs, repairs, moving costs, and more. Not having savings can make it almost impossible to afford the home of your dreams.

9. Not Being Able to Go on Vacation

Without savings, it’s challenging or even sometimes impossible to take time off for some rest. When you don’t set money aside, you can get sucked into the never-ending cycle of living paycheck-to-paycheck. Since you need to work to support yourself, vacations may become less frequent or disappear altogether.

While you may think you can put a vacation on credit, that can perpetuate the “can’t save” situation, because you’ll have debt to wrangle. You could wind up coming home from your getaway to face more bills.

10. Not Having Much Financial Freedom

One of the most potent limiting factors in life can be a lack of savings. With a robust bank account to fall back on, you increase your options and flexibility. Moving to a city or state with more opportunity, taking a professional course or college classes, and starting a business can all be possibilities if you’ve saved money.

Of course money can’t solve every problem life throws at you. However, it is a powerful tool that allows you to access opportunities. Remembering this can help you get serious about saving money.

11. Not Being Able to Invest

If you aren’t able to save money, you likely won’t be able to invest those savings, either. Which means potentially missing out on market gains over time (the market tends to go up over time, though it is volatile over the short-term).

There are different levels of risk, of course, when you decide to invest your money rather than keeping it in a savings account, but the main point is that if you can’t manage to save, you may also have a hard time managing to invest. That could mean that your money’s growth potential is stunted, and may delay you in reaching your financial goals.

12. Not Being Able to Help Others

When someone is in financial need, lending money can help them get back on their feet. Whether it’s through providing a micro-loan, donating to a charity, or contributing to a scholarship, you can make a difference in the lives of others no matter how much you give.

But, if you don’t have savings, you may not be able to afford a helping hand.

Why Saving Money Is Very Important

Since money touches almost every area of your life, saving it for what matters most can be essential. Reining in your spending habits can be hard, no doubt, but the payoff quite literally is being able to afford your needs and your goals.

​​Online Banking With SoFi

Reaching your financial goals will likely depend, in large part, on your ability to save your money. While this can be difficult in the moment (saying no to splurges, for instance), it can set you up for years of financial wellness.

Whether you want to be able to celebrate big moments with friends, start your own business, own a home, or take a major vacation, saving money can help put you on the right path.

Interested in opening an online bank account? When you sign up for a SoFi Checking and Savings account with direct deposit, you’ll get a competitive annual percentage yield (APY), pay zero account fees, and enjoy an array of rewards, such as access to the Allpoint Network of 55,000+ fee-free ATMs globally. Qualifying accounts can even access their paycheck up to two days early.

FAQ

Can I get by without saving money?

While it’s possible to get by without savings, there may come a day when you run into an unexpected expense that causes financial hardship. If you live paycheck to paycheck without an emergency fund, an unforeseen cost could set you back and make it challenging to recover.

Is debt inevitable if you do not save?

Without savings to fall back on, it’s quite possible to go into debt when unforeseen expenses arise. Contributing to a savings account, even a small amount monthly, can make unexpected costs more manageable so you can sidestep debt.

When is the best time to start saving?

It’s best to start saving now to give yourself time to build a cushion. Remember, everyone has to start somewhere. Even if you can only save $20 per month, your future self will likely thank you.

Photo credit: iStock/nicoletaionescu

SoFi members with direct deposit activity can earn 4.50% annual percentage yield (APY) on savings balances (including Vaults) and 0.50% APY on checking balances. Direct Deposit means a recurring deposit of regular income to an account holder’s SoFi Checking or Savings account, including payroll, pension, or government benefit payments (e.g., Social Security), made by the account holder’s employer, payroll or benefits provider or government agency (“Direct Deposit”) via the Automated Clearing House (“ACH”) Network during a 30-day Evaluation Period (as defined below). Deposits that are not from an employer or government agency, including but not limited to check deposits, peer-to-peer transfers (e.g., transfers from PayPal, Venmo, etc.), merchant transactions (e.g., transactions from PayPal, Stripe, Square, etc.), and bank ACH funds transfers and wire transfers from external accounts, or are non-recurring in nature (e.g., IRS tax refunds), do not constitute Direct Deposit activity. There is no minimum Direct Deposit amount required to qualify for the stated interest rate. SoFi members with direct deposit are eligible for other SoFi Plus benefits.

As an alternative to direct deposit, SoFi members with Qualifying Deposits can earn 4.50% APY on savings balances (including Vaults) and 0.50% APY on checking balances. Qualifying Deposits means one or more deposits that, in the aggregate, are equal to or greater than $5,000 to an account holder’s SoFi Checking and Savings account (“Qualifying Deposits”) during a 30-day Evaluation Period (as defined below). Qualifying Deposits only include those deposits from the following eligible sources: (i) ACH transfers, (ii) inbound wire transfers, (iii) peer-to-peer transfers (i.e., external transfers from PayPal, Venmo, etc. and internal peer-to-peer transfers from a SoFi account belonging to another account holder), (iv) check deposits, (v) instant funding to your SoFi Bank Debit Card, (vi) push payments to your SoFi Bank Debit Card, and (vii) cash deposits. Qualifying Deposits do not include: (i) transfers between an account holder’s Checking account, Savings account, and/or Vaults; (ii) interest payments; (iii) bonuses issued by SoFi Bank or its affiliates; or (iv) credits, reversals, and refunds from SoFi Bank, N.A. (“SoFi Bank”) or from a merchant. SoFi members with Qualifying Deposits are not eligible for other SoFi Plus benefits.

SoFi Bank shall, in its sole discretion, assess each account holder’s Direct Deposit activity and Qualifying Deposits throughout each 30-Day Evaluation Period to determine the applicability of rates and may request additional documentation for verification of eligibility. The 30-Day Evaluation Period refers to the “Start Date” and “End Date” set forth on the APY Details page of your account, which comprises a period of 30 calendar days (the “30-Day Evaluation Period”). You can access the APY Details page at any time by logging into your SoFi account on the SoFi mobile app or SoFi website and selecting either (i) Banking > Savings > Current APY or (ii) Banking > Checking > Current APY. Upon receiving a Direct Deposit or $5,000 in Qualifying Deposits to your account, you will begin earning 4.50% APY on savings balances (including Vaults) and 0.50% on checking balances on or before the following calendar day. You will continue to earn these APYs for (i) the remainder of the current 30-Day Evaluation Period and through the end of the subsequent 30-Day Evaluation Period and (ii) any following 30-day Evaluation Periods during which SoFi Bank determines you to have Direct Deposit activity or $5,000 in Qualifying Deposits without interruption.

SoFi Bank reserves the right to grant a grace period to account holders following a change in Direct Deposit activity or Qualifying Deposits activity before adjusting rates. If SoFi Bank grants you a grace period, the dates for such grace period will be reflected on the APY Details page of your account. If SoFi Bank determines that you did not have Direct Deposit activity or $5,000 in Qualifying Deposits during the current 30-day Evaluation Period and, if applicable, the grace period, then you will begin earning the rates earned by account holders without either Direct Deposit or Qualifying Deposits until you have Direct Deposit activity or $5,000 in Qualifying Deposits in a subsequent 30-Day Evaluation Period. For the avoidance of doubt, an account holder with both Direct Deposit activity and Qualifying Deposits will earn the rates earned by account holders with Direct Deposit.

Members without either Direct Deposit activity or Qualifying Deposits, as determined by SoFi Bank, during a 30-Day Evaluation Period and, if applicable, the grace period, will earn 1.20% APY on savings balances (including Vaults) and 0.50% APY on checking balances.

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