52 Money Save Ways: Week 1: Make Lists
This series will be ongoing for a year here at A Mitten Full of Savings, so sit back, relax and get ready to take in weekly tips to help you save money in all kinds of ways. What inspired this? It was the 52 Week Saving Challenge.
The 52 Week Saving Challenge is very simple to do and before you know it, you will have more money that you realized at the end of a year. Here is how it works:
Every week, you save $1 for the week of the year it is. For instance, since this is week 1, I will put $1 away. Next week, I will add $2 to my $1 making my total $3. Then, this will carry on for all the weeks of the year until you have come to the end of week 52 with adding $52 to the pot. That’s right! The most you will ever have to put away for the week is $52! Can you imagine how much money you will have at the end of the year? It comes out to $1,378! So by just depositing a little bit each week, probably less than you really even notice for a good portion of the time, you can have nearly $1,400 dollars at the end of the year! I did this last year and was able to have $2000 saved for Christmas. I didn’t follow for formula totally and will be doing it differently this year as well. You can read and join the 52 Week Challenge here!
Along with joining me in this challenge, I will be encouraging you to make other small changes that will make adding to the pot even easier by providing weekly tips for saving money. I am going to call it, “The Money Save Ways Tips“, because the ‘old’ way was the money spend way. This week, I want to talk about the importance of making lists when it comes to shopping.
I know that name sounds a little wonky… but come on… I had to be unique 😉
Money Saves Way Tip #1: Make lists
It seems like a simple thing to do, but making a list before you go shopping can really help you avoid making out of budget purchases. Of all the times I go to the grocery store without a list, I am shocked at how much the total is when I get to the register because of all those extras I threw in my cart that were “just a couple dollars”. It adds up fast and what’s more, you end up with odds and ends that were not planned for and may go to waste.
Simply making a list before you leave can be great for making sure you stay on budget. Don’t allow anything to go in your cart that is not on the list. To help yourself stay even more on budget, start taking mental notes of how much common items you purchase cost and do a tally before you leave so you have a very close estimate of what your list will cost when you are done.
There are some great apps, such as “Out of Milk” that make it easy to make lists, add up totals and categorize. (you can find best money saving apps here)
I hope this tip was helpful to you, and if so, would you please share it? Also, join me in the 52 Week Money Challenge for more “Money Saves Way Tips!”
Be sure to follow along and come back every week to find a NEW idea of as part of the 52 Money Saving Ways Tips!
Plus you can join us on the 52 Week Challenge in that 52 week challenge section of the blog!
Want more Frugal Tips, here’s a few you should read now while waiting on Next Week’s tip:
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