3 Savings Challenges to Try Out in 2024

Very few people find saving money fun. While it's great to see your savings account balance grow, it's less fun to make the sacrifices necessary for that to happen.

The good news is, you can make the process of socking away more cash into something enjoyable. You can do that by making a game out of it.

Many different games encourage you to keep more money in your bank account, so here are three of them to try in 2024 that could work for you.

1. The 52-week challenge

The 52-week challenge is a simple one that's great to start when a new year begins. Here's how it works:

• Transfer $1 to savings in the first week of the year
• Transfer $2 to savings in the second week of the year
• Transfer $3 to savings in the third week of the year

Continue increasing the amount you're contributing to savings by $1 each week so by the end of the year, you put $52 into your savings account in the last week. If you stick with this plan every week, you will have saved $1,378 by the last week of 2024.

The best part about this challenge is that you're not forcing yourself to save too much at once. You start small and build up, and even on your last week, you're only saving $52 which is less than the price of one meal out at a nice restaurant. So, the challenge feels doable.

To try this out, transfer the necessary amount into a savings account at the start of the week. Hopefully, your bank makes it pretty easy to do that -- especially if you have a savings account linked to your checking account.

2. The no-spend challenge

The no-spend challenge is another great game, which works especially well if you have a partner to do it with you.

There are a few ways to play this savings game. One option is to see how long you can go without spending any money on non-necessities (if you're playing by yourself) or to see who can go the longest without spending on any non-necessities (if you're playing with a friend). Define what a necessity is (like food and gas to go to work) and then keep track of how long you can go without buying anything but those essentials.

Another option is to see how many no-spend days you can have during a month (if you're playing by yourself) or who can rack up the most no-spend days during a month-long period. These are days when you spend no money on anything at all.

Each of these challenges helps you get out of the mindset of buying stuff, and means there are days when you aren't spending anything so you should have extra money to save.

3. The $5 game

Finally, this last game is great for anyone who still pays regularly with cash. It's a simple one. Whenever you pay, if you get a $5 bill back in change, you have to put it into savings. You can put it in a jar and then deposit all of your saved $5 bills once a month -- or let them build up until the end of the year when you deposit the entire jar full.

Each of these games can make saving really fun, so give them a try in 2024 to see how much extra money you can end up keeping for your personal finance goals instead of spending it.