52 Week Challenge

It's a new year! Welcome to 2015!

If you are ready to get serious about your financial life, come take a journey with me this year. Let's work on getting back to the basics; making money management easy, convenient, and effective.

With the new year, people across the world are resolving to better their lives in some way or other. Many are making unrealistic resolutions that they will keep for a week or two. I am about to propose a resolution that you can and should make.

I want you to save $1378 extra this year.

And we are going to do it together. Here's how.

First, open a new savings account. I personally use American Express for this for a couple of great reasons. First, the interest rate is about as high as you can find out there right now. At the time of this writing, the rate is 0.85% APY, 85 times what I am making at my local bank. Second, keeping this money away from my local bank makes it harder for me to raid the account when I think I need it. That severely cuts down on the temptation.

After you have an account set up, start scheduling transfers. Every week, on Friday, transfer an amount equal to the week into your new savings account. For example, this Friday, the first of 2015, transfer a single dollar. Next Friday, the 9th, is the second week of 2015, so transfer 2 dollars. and so forth until the end of the year when on the last Friday you are transferring 52 dollars.

At first, this is going to seem easy. And it is. In January you will have put in only $15. But you may be thinking of December. How are you going to swing over $50ish a week? Especially when there is Christmas shopping to do?!

Well, we are going to work this year to put ourselves on a stronger financial footing. As the weeks pass, our situation will, hopefully, improve. And by the end of the year, the habit will have become so normal that you will have learned to live within your means.

So give it a shot. Let's start saving and taking care of our financial futures.