Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
The 50 Envelope Savings Challenge
Lydia
3rd Jan 2023
Are you ready for a new savings challenge? Perhaps you want to save for something in particular, or want to challenge yourself to save where you can.
We all have savings goals. Many of us go into a new year with financial resolutions. You may even being thinking about this as a 2023 resolution. But it is never too early (or late!) to start saving. Little and often can be the best way to go, and having a set goal can help you along nicely.
We wanted to share a method that might work for you – especially if you’re an avoider when it comes to your savings personality type.
With the 50-envelope savings challenge, you could save up to £1275 in 50 weeks. You could put this money towards a house deposit, a holiday or your even use some of it on Christmas presents – the opportunities are endless. With inflation rising and food costs and energy bills soaring, you may even want to save to allow yourself a financial buffer.
So, how do you undertake the 50 envelop savings challenge? Watch the video below and read the simple to follow directions!
What is the 50-envelope savings challenge?
Simply put, it is a savings challenge based on filling 50 envelopes with increasing amounts of money. You can save a total of £1275 in 50 weeks! Making savings a weekly thing can be difficult, particularly if you are paid monthly. If this is the case, why not fill your envelopes for the next four weeks until you are paid, and do it in one go.
If you start now, you could save £78 by Christmas, £91 by the New Year and £171 by Valentine’s Day. These savings may seem small, but they are nothing to be sniffed at. Saving little and often will help you stay on track.
Just imagine yourself this time next year. You could have saved £1,275 for yourself. If not now, when?
How is it done?
Start by getting yourself 50 envelopes – we opted for small, dinner money sized envelopes. Get a lockable box or safe. Label your envelopes from £1 – £50. The corresponding amount of money will go in each envelope. Then, place the envelopes in the box.
Each week pick out an envelope to fill up – you don’t have to go in order, some weeks you might have more money left over than others. The spontaneity of it may make it easier – instead of having to point away £47, £48, £49 and £50 away on consecutive weeks, which may be a challenge, you could end up putting away some higher amounts and some lower amounts, to make it manageable.
For example, in the video, we chose to fill up the £50 and the £5 as we had a bit more money left over this month.
It is a good idea to spread out the larger amounts over the weeks. This is easier than leaving them all until the end. If you were to do them in order, you would have to save £194 in the final 4 weeks of the challenge. You might want to shuffle the envelopes to choose at random or keep them in order and pick an envelope you know you can fill that week.
Also, if you have a little more left at the end of the month than you expected, you might opt to fill an extra envelope. This would shorten the challenge, but you could always add more envelopes at the end if you chose to. Many people do 52 envelopes, resulting in savings of £1,378 in total.
Are you going to try the 50 envelope savings challenge? Let us know in the comments below!
Good savings idea.