Saving money is tricky.
The key is getting organised, setting yourself easy goals, and tricking your brain so you resist the temptation to spend with wild abandon.
Something else that might help is this simple money saving chart, which turns stashing away money into a fun game of bingo.
The chart has 52 squares, each containing a different sum of money.
You pick a different square each week, and whatever the number the box says is how much you move into your savings account.
They’re all fairly small amounts, so it doesn’t feel like a major punishment, and you can quickly rack up a decent bit of extra money for Christmas shopping or anything else you’re saving towards.
FYI, the chart is in Australian dollars, so anyone who fills it in for a year will earn $1,000 – or £558.
You can easily make your own chart in pounds, nicking the same idea and increasing the amounts if you want to save more. Just make sure some squares are small required savings so you don’t feel like you’re constantly sticking to a strict budget.
It’s important to have different amounts available for those weeks when the budget is feeling tight. It’s better to save more when you can than to struggle to meet an unattainable foal.
You can add an element of chance if you’re keen by rolling two dice twice – once for the number of squares across, once for the number of squares down – then choosing your square to save based on the outcome.
The whole idea is to take the decision making out of saving and just make putting away something you have to do – while also having fun.
Medium Sized Family, the blog behind the chart, explains: ‘My advice is to push hard. If you think you can save up $20 this week, try for $22. Pick the highest number you can reasonably save without causing you hardship. (Don’t put money in this account that you should be sending to your mortgage payment.)
‘And for that really rotten week that just will not end, you get a free pass. The week an unexpected rebate check shows up in the mail, cross off a bigger number!
‘Need a bigger challenge? Add a zero to the end of each number.’
Will you be trying this trick?
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