If you don’t think saving money should be a game, you probably don’t need to participate in the savings challenge craze.
Savings challenges are life-changing for anyone who has a hard time holding on to money. But they’re not for everyone.
People who set aside money often do so by instructing their bank or payroll provider to automatically withdraw funds every month; anyone who wants to save more could simply increase the amount they want to contribute to the desired savings account.
This is especially easy to do with employer-sponsored retirement plans, and in fact, people who are committed to saving might already do that, ratcheting up at the start of the new year.
7 Reasons To Skip the Savings Challenge
With that in mind, here are some other pretty good reasons not to concern yourself with the money-challenge craze, including both ends of the spectrum:
- You realize that a savings challenge won’t make money appear out of thin air, and you need to find a job before you can worry about saving.
- You have so much debt that your challenge should focus on paying it down faster before worrying about setting aside pennies. Seek out a debt repayment challenge instead.
- You understand that a savings challenge is not a replacement for a budget, yet you don’t have a budget written yet. Find a budget-creation challenge instead.
- You see money savings challenges as the financial equivalent of crash diets, and you don’t want to experience the financial version of regaining more weight than you’ve lost, which is what happens after a crash diet.
- You have been making the maximum allowable annual contributions to your retirement plan(s) ever since you had access to them. These thresholds exceed the example amounts put forth in most money challenge spiels.
- You are already on schedule to retire early, in which case you might find the money challenges to be almost comical.
- You are already financially independent and got there by your own efforts.
If any of the seven items mentioned above apply to you, then you don’t need to join a challenge.
But if NONE of these apply to you, then you MUST join the $1,000 Savings Challenge today!
