I’m a money-saving expert – how to save £500 for Christmas, but you need to start SOON
NOW that the sun is finally here, it may seem early to start thinking about Christmas.
But if you want to save £500 for festive presents and food in December, there is an easy money-saving challenge that could help.
TikTok user @budgetwithtigerlilly shared how she has a weekly sheet that you tick off between July and December to help with funds.
In a video, she explained: “How to save £500 for Christmas this year.
“This challenge starts in July, and there are 25 Sundays left until December 22nd.
“If you put away £20 each week and cross it off on the tracker, you would end up with £500.”
While £500 would be a great sum to help with the festive budget, don’t worry if you can’t afford to do £20 each week.
The woman explained: “I’ve also done different versions to see different budgets.
“There’s the £5 version where you put away £5 each week, cross it off, and you end up with £125 just before Christmas.
“There’s the £10 version which gives you £250.
“The £30 version is for bigger budgets and gives you £750.
“The biggest version is the £40 each week, which gives you £1,000.
“This is a perfect challenge if you haven’t started saving for Christmas already or you want to save more money.”
She shared how she was selling her “Santa Sundays” saving sheets on her Budget With Tiger Lily Etsy page.
Many people were impressed at her saving challenge, with one writing: “oh these are cool!”
Another added: “Love these.”
And a third commented: “Great idea.”
If you are inspired by this, we shared six savings challenges to take in 2024 and how you could save thousands.
Meanwhile a woman revealed her very easy “5p saving challenge” which enables her to put aside £3,000 by the end of the year.
The budgeting mum shared how you don’t need to worry about putting big sums of money aside, with the largest amount being £18.25.
On her @budgetingmumofficial account, she showed how day one of the saving chart is 5p, and then it increases by 5p each day of the year.
So day two will be 10p, day three will be 15p, and so on until you reach day 365 at £18.25.
While some people like to tick off the days in order, she adds the amount she can spare each day.
Money saving challenges
Here's some of our favourite money saving challenges to h
Here’s a rundown of some of the most popular schemes:
- Weather saving challenge – Save the amount equal to whatever the highest temperature was that week. £1 = 1C.
- 1p challenge – save 1p a day for everyday of the year, but it increase the amount by 1p each day. So day one you save 1p, 2p on day two and 3p on day three. When you reach 100 days you start adding a £1 coin each day too, while this increases to a £2 coin each day plus pennies at 200 days, and £3 each day on top of pennies at day 300.
- 20p a day challenge – Start by putting 20p in savings, then increase the amount by 20p every day. For example, the first week will look like this: 20p, 40p, 60p, 80p, £1, £1.20, £1.40.
- £5 a week challenge – Like the 20p challenge, put aside £5 a week and increase it by a fiver each week. Eg £5, £10, £15, £20
- Round-up challenge – Every time you buy something, round up the purchase to the nearest £1 and put the difference in a savings account. Eg. You pay £2.60, so you put 40p in savings. You can use an app such as Monzo or Starling to do this.
- Bingo challenge – Here you have a bingo card with different numbers on it and you tick them off when you’ve put that amount in your savings account. It can be ad hoc but you have to tick them all off by the end of the month.
- Monday to Sunday challenge – With this challenge, you simply save £1 on Monday, £2 on Tuesday and so on until the weekend where you don’t save on Saturday or Sunday.
- 365 day challenge – Every Sunday you put aside £1, followed by £2 on Monday, £3 on Wednesday and so on. On Saturday you’ll put away £7, and then the process repeats and you’ll put aside £1 on Sunday as the new week begins.