5 Ways to Put $2,000 in Your Savings This Year

We’re officially deep into 2019 and studies show that most people have given up on their new year’s resolutions by this point. But does it have to be that way? Why not start a new years resolution a few weeks or even months into the year?

Well, I’m here to tell you that you can start to build your savings at any point of the year! I’m not saying that you have to implement all of these, but if you do you’ll have well over $2,000 in your savings account in just 12 short months. 

Our blog posts often contain affiliate links, you can learn more in our very long (and very boring) affiliate disclosure!

Round-up your purchases ($500)

A great way to save money back in the day was to save up all of your change and cash it in after a few weeks. The unfortunate thing now is that we don’t use cash nearly as often! This means we have to create totally innovative ways to save the same money we could have before. This is where awesome tech apps come in!

The two apps you need to know about are Acorns (if you’re American) and Mylo (if you’re Canadian, like me!). Both of these apps do the exact same thing. They connect to your bank account, round up all your purchases and invest your “spare change”. It’s a really great way to start an investment portfolio and start saving money without really realizing you’re doing it. I highly suggest you start using either Acorns or Mylo if you’re looking for a great way to start saving/investing your spare change. 

Switch to free banking ($180)

Isn’t it crazy that we’re charged to use our own money? For the first 5 years, after I turned 18, I was paying $14.99 A MONTH to use my own money with a very popular Canadian bank. Crazy, eh? That’s a lot of money. That adds up to around $180 a year.

Since we live in a technological world, there are now alternatives to traditional bank fees popping up everywhere. My favourite free bank is Tangerine! They’re seriously awesome. I’ve been doing all of my banking online since I turned 18 because I’m a millennial and that’s how we work.

Right now, if you sign up for Tangerine and enter my orange key when you do, you’ll get $50 when you deposit $100 into your account. Free money, plus $180 in savings? Couldn’t be better. Use orange key 50681730S1 when you sign up! 

 

Do the penny savings challenge ($667.95)

A savings challenge is one of the best ways to start saving money because it gets you so laser-focused on a single goal. The penny savings challenge is one of my favourites because it starts out with such a small amount of money and on the last day of the challenge it’s still less than $5 a day! So how does it work?

The first day you start the challenge you save one penny! Duh? The second day, you save two pennies. On day 100, you’ll be saving 100 pennies or one dollar. This means if you do the challenge for a full year you’ll be saving $3.65 on the last day of the entire challenge. The awesome thing is that it really adds up. The total at the end of this savings challenge equals $667.95, which is INSANE.

Now, if you live in a place that no longer makes pennies (like Canada) I have a solution for you! At the end of every week, you’ll just transfer the total amount into a separate account for yourself. So at the end of week 1, you’ll just transfer over 28 cents to a separate bank account! If you want to see this in chart form, check it out here. 

Try a no spend weekend ritual ($600)

Have you ever tried a no-spend weekend? It’s really awesome. Like really awesome. So let’s think through a typical weekend for an average person.

Let’s say you have a weekend planned where you’re going for dinner with your friends on Friday night and going shopping on Saturday. You spend $30 on dinner, and you buy a couple new shirts for another $50. We’ll say you spend on average $50 every single weekend.

If you stopped spending money for just one weekend a month you could save that money which adds up SO quickly! What can you do on a no-spend weekend? Clean, organize, write, read, ride, whatever makes you happy. 

Meal plan ($400)

Meal planning is the best way to save money on groceries. Failure to plan is planning to fail, my friends! When you go into a week and have absolutely no idea what to do for food, it’s going to be hard for you to do a successful grocery shop for you and your family. Meal planning is the absolute best way to organize your foodstuff and save tons of money in the process!

If you’re anything like me, you don’t like eating the same 5 or 6 meals over and over again and really want something different. I have the hardest time coming up with new recipes to add to my meal plan, this is why I LOVE $5 meal plan. It’s a service that for only $5 a month (so inexpensive!) they’ll send you a weekly meal plan along with the grocery list you need to go with it! $5 meal plan is a great way to start meal planning if you have no idea where to look.