10 Fun Money Saving Challenges to Try This Year (Save $1,000+)

There's something about a good challenge that can give us just the right amount of motivation to get something done. Don't feel like folding the laundry? Challenge yourself to see how fast you can do it and suddenly it becomes a fun game.

The same thing goes with saving money. If you're having trouble, trying one of the money-saving challenges below might be exactly what you need to kickstart your emergency fund, retirement savings, vacation fund, or something else.

Even more importantly, doing savings challenges will get you used to saving money consistently, which is a habit that will serve you well for the rest of your life. Just remember to stay consistent!

To start things off, here's a fun challenge that will help you save money throughout the year, without much effort:

1. Spare Change Challenge

This money-saving challenge is probably the exact same one you used as a kid. The idea is to save all the spare change you come into contact with for an entire year.

The only problem is, these days most of us pay with credit or debit cards, so even a year's worth of spare change probably wouldn't amount to much.

Fortunately, thanks to the wonders of technology, "roundups" are becoming more and more commonly offered by banks and other financial apps. If you haven't heard of them before, roundup services analyze your card purchases, round them up to the nearest dollar, and invest the spare change.

So for example, if you make a purchase of $3.50, that would be rounded up to $4.00, with the extra $0.50 going straight to your savings/investment account.

If your brick and mortar bank doesn't offer anything like this, take a look into Acorns. It's a neat service that offers roundups, automated investing, and more. You can even multiply your roundups to increase the amount you save.

2. $5 Bill Savings Challenge

This is a step up from the spare change challenge. For this, you'll be stashing away every single $5 bill you come into contact with throughout the year.

Vincent Teo did this exact challenge in 2019 and he ended up saving $710. Not too shabby!

Unfortunately, this challenge suffers from the same problem as the spare change challenge in that if you don't use cash often, it probably won't produce great results. In that case, try saving every bit of cash you come into contact with rather than just the $5 bills. Even if you don't end up saving much, it'll be an interesting experiment!

3. 52-Week Challenge

The 52-week challenge is probably the most well-known money-saving challenge, and it's been remixed in almost every way imaginable.

The traditional way to do it is to save a set amount of money every single week for 52 weeks in a row. On week #1, you'd save $1. On week #2, $2. All the way until week #52, where you'd save $52. In the end, this adds up to a total savings of $1,378. Some of the other ways to do the 52-week challenge include doing it in reverse (i.e. saving $52 week #1 and $1 week #52), doubling it (i.e. saving $2 week #1, $104 week #52), halving it (i.e. saving $0.50 week #1, $26 week #52), or taking on the savings amounts randomly (i.e. week #1 you might save $10, week #2 you might save $5, etc.).

4. No-Spend Challenge

If you want to save a lot of money in a short amount of time, doing a no-spend weekend, week, or month, is going to be your best bet. And don't worry, you'll still be able to buy food, gas, and other essentials. The idea of a no-spend challenge is to simply cut out discretionary spending.

That means no eating out, no going to the movies, no buying new clothes -- no spending money on anything that isn't absolutely necessary.

While this may sound more like torture than a money-saving challenge, don't be afraid to give it a try. Not only will you save a ton of money, you'll also realize how many fun things you can do for free.

5. Receipt Saving Challenge

This is a fun savings challenge thought up by Michael Timmermann of Michael Saves. It involves actually saving the "savings" you see on the bottom of grocery store receipts.

What that means is, if you go and buy $100 worth of groceries and, through in-store discounts, save $5 off your bill, you have to actually go into your bank account and move that $5 over to your savings or investment account.

To make this more convenient and sensible, Michael saves up all his receipts and then goes through them at the end of the month. In about a year, he saved just over $2,000 doing this, plus he says it helped him optimize his grocery shopping routine for even more savings (of both time and money).

On top of that, you can get even more out of this challenge by scanning your receipts into cash back apps like Ibotta.

6. 100 Envelope Challenge

If you've been on the financial side of TikTok, you've probably seen or heard of the 100 envelope challenge (also known as the 100 day money challenge).

This challenge involves numbering 100 individual envelopes from 1-100, drawing a random envelope each day, and then filling it with the corresponding amount of cash. So for example, if you draw an envelope with the number twelve on it, you have to put $12 inside.

Once you fill every envelope, you'll have completed the challenge and saved a total of $5,050!

There's only one problem:

Saving $5,050 in 100 days is pretty intense. If you want to take things more slowly, another popular way to do the challenge is to draw two envelopes a week instead of one every day. This will have you completing the challenge in just about a year, which is a much more reasonable pace.

There are plenty of other ways to modify the 100 envelope challenge too. You can even do it digitally if you don't want to use physical cash and envelopes!

7. Weather Wednesdays Savings Challenge

This is a unique money-saving challenge thought up by Melissa of Trendy Money.

Here's how it works:

Each Wednesday for the entire year, check the high temperature of the day and put that amount of money in your savings. So, for example, if it's 80 degrees outside, you'll have to save $80. Simple as that.

The only problem with this challenge is that if you live somewhere really hot, it's going to be way more difficult than if you live somewhere cooler. To remedy that, feel free to ignore your local weather report and save money based on a random city's weather instead.

8. Habit Challenge

This money-saving challenge kills two birds with one stone. Not only will it help you save money, it'll also help you improve another aspect of your life.

To get started, think of something you either want to stop doing (e.g. smoking, drinking, etc.) or something you want to start doing more (exercising, eating healthy, etc.). Got something in mind? Now, each time you either do the thing you want to stop doing, or you forget to do the thing you want to do more, save a predetermined amount of money (e.g. $1, $5, etc.).

The only problem with this challenge is that it requires you to be completely honest with yourself. If it helps, try doing this challenge with someone else, that way you can both hold each other accountable.

9. Side Hustle Savings Challenge

If you want to create an additional income source for yourself and save money at the same time, this is the challenge for you. All you have to do is set a savings goal (e.g. $1,000) and then try to fund it with your side hustle.

To get started, you could go with something easy like filling paid surveys. Other more involved options include ridesharing (Uber, Lyft, etc.), delivery (Skip the Dishes, Instacart, etc.), tasking (Taskrabbit, Clickworker, etc.), content creation (blogging, Youtube, TikTok, etc.), transcription (Scribie, Rev, etc.), and freelancing (Upwork, Fiverr, etc.).

Check out our guide on how to earn free gift cards for other simple money-making ideas!

10. DIY Money-Saving Challenge

If none of the money-saving challenges above suit your fancy, why not just make your own? By putting together a custom challenge, you can pick your own savings goal and deadline.

Here's a simple step-by-step process:

Step 1. Think about how much you want to save (e.g. $1,000)Step 2. Think about when you want to achieve your goal (e.g. 6 months from now)Step 3. Think about how often you want to contribute to your goal (e.g. weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc.)

Once you've gone through those steps, you can easily calculate your required savings rate. For example, if you want to save $1,000 in 6 months, you'll need to save around $167/month.

While a savings challenge like this may not be as unique or interesting as some of the ones above, it'll work great for habit building. Plus, it can be made easier with automation.

For example, if you know you need to save $167/month for 6 months to hit your savings goal, you could set up an automatic bank transfer to get this done without even needing to think about it. Then, after finishing the challenge, you could just keep it going to continue saving more and more.

How to Make These Money-Saving Challenges More Fun and Motivating

Even with a good challenge, staying motivated can be difficult. Here are some tips to help make things more fun and increase your chances of success:

Include a friend or family member - Instead of going at it alone, pick a money saving challenge above to do with a friend, significant other, or family member. You could even get an entire group of people to participate. This will build in some accountability.Make it visual - There are a ton of printables around the web for the different money saving challenges listed above. Either find one you like, or make one yourself! Have a goal - Why are you even doing a money-saving challenge? Whether you're looking to fund an emergency fund, save money to pay off debt, or just treat yo' self, make sure you know what your savings are going to go toward before getting started! Setting financial goals is one of the most important basics of personal finance.

Challenge Yourself to Save!

Now that you have a variety of savings challenges to choose from and ideas on how to get the most out of them, it's time to get started! The sooner you start, the sooner you'll reach your savings goals.

Good luck!