I’ve stashed away nearly £6,500 using simple savings challenges – here’s how you can too
SAVING cash can feel like a chore - but Jordan Taylor made it fun by doing three simple challenges to raise nearly £6,500 in four years.
Putting a pound away every time it rained helped Jordan raise £829 in one of the more unusual games he played.
While doing back-to-back penny savings challenges banked him £2,638.
A “harder” challenge he followed, which saw him put aside a pound more for each day of the week, helped him raise nearly £3,000.
Many people use savings challenges to get into the habit of putting aside cash.
It can also be a more interesting way of saving aside from just transferring over a lump sum every month.
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But usually, you have to remember to take out the cash yourself and put it in a piggy bank, or transfer it digitally into your savings account.
Jordan used a nifty money saving platform which automatically took the payments out of his account and into a savings pot - which meant he didn’t have to do anything.
He used the platform If This Then That (IFTTT), which you can link to your Monzo account.
You can scroll through the platform and choose savings challenges to follow, turning them on and off at the tabs.
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The platform then tells your Monzo account what to do, shifting money into savings pots in line with the rules of the savings challenge you’ve picked.
The challenges will run indefinitely but you can switch it off immediately at any time if you don’t want to do it anymore - or you’re strapped for cash.
It's not the only app you can use to make saving money easier.
One savvy saver told The Sun that he thinks he saves around £1,500 from using Snoop - which is an app that connects to your bank account and suggests ways for you to save money.
While apps like Chip and Plum work out how much you can afford to save, and then automatically move this amount from your bank account to your savings.
One Sun reader raised more than £2,500 simply from letting these apps tick over in the background for over half a year.
Apps that help you keep on track with money are more important than ever while millions of households struggle with their budgets under a cost of living crisis.
Inflation has risen to a 40-hear high of 9%, pushing food and energy bills through the roof.
It means that you're paying more for everything from groceries to bills to holidays.
Here are all the savings challenges Jordan followed to raise money for a trip to Japan and furniture for his new home that you can try too.
Rainy day challenge - £829
Jordan took the meaning “saving for a rainy day” to a new level by following a weather-based savings challenge.
“Every time it rains in my post code area, £1 is taken out of my current account and into my ‘rainy day’ pot,” he said.
Britain isn’t famous for it’s sunshine - which meant spells of bad weather saw a total of £829 go into his savings pot over two and a half years.
“We’re looking to use the money to go to Japan, or somewhere near there.”
Penny savings challenge - £2,638
One of the more manageable savings challenges Jordan picked was the penny savings challenge.
It works by saving a penny more each day for a year - you start by saving 1p on day one, 2p on day two, all the way up to £3.65 on the last day of the year.
That means by December 31, you’ll have saved a total of £667.95.
He’s done three challenges back to back, and is mid-way through his fourth.
So far he has saved £2,638.
“Saving 1p more every day sounds really cheap at first, but as time goes on, it all adds up,” he said.
“It was pretty cool to see £667.95 in my savings pot when I finished the first challenge - I found it was easy to stick to.”
“However, we confused our mortgage broker when me and my partner were buying our first home - he was confused when he saw payments going up by 1p increments, so we had to explain what these payments were.”
Weekly savings challenge - roughly £3,000
A more challenging savings game Jordan took part in saw him save £1 for every day of the week.
He would save £1 on Monday, £2 on Tuesday, all the way up to £7 on Sunday. The next week, he would start from £1 again.
That meant each week, you’ll save £28 - which over the year works out at £1,456.
Jordan didn’t stick to this though - he ran the savings challenge on and off for over three years.
“With cost of living going up, I’ve had to turn it off - it’s either doing the challenge or paying for fuel in the car,” he said.
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“I found the £28 a week challenge quite a lot more expensive than the 1p challenge.”
Because he kept turning the challenge on and off, he hasn’t got a clear idea of how much he saved, but estimates it is around £3,000.
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