Will You Accept the Challenge?

 

Are you up to the challenge?

Are you up to the challenge?

I am not the first person to point out the many parallels between financial and fitness goals.

The mental and emotional tools we use to motivate ourselves to eat healthfully and workout are pretty much the same tools we use to save more money and make better purchasing decisions.

  • Both require extensive discipline.
  • Both require the ability to say “no” to short term temptations in order to live better in the long term.

So I had a thought. 

When I find myself lagging with my financial goals, why not jumpstart my healthy financial habits in much the same way that I jump start my fitness goals…with a challenge!

These little 30 day fitness challenges are hot right now.

Whether it’s the burpee challenge, 30 days to 100 pushups, or the 30 day squat challenge…I love a good fitness challenge to shake things up.

I perform these challenges in addition to my usual workout. 

These challenges not only help me perfect my execution of a single exercise, they also build endurance. For me, the end result of these challenges is improved overall fitness performance.  I usually run faster and farther and hit those hills with gusto.

So here’s an idea, why don’t we start a new hotness and create some 30 day financial challenges?  There are a few floating around that I know of and have tried.

But together here, we could crowd source some new ideas and start a new craze!

Here are a few of my ideas to get us started:

  1. Deny impulse or unplanned purchases for 30 days – whether it is for you, your partner or your kids, if you did not plan for the purchase just say no.
  2. Don’t eat out for an entire month challenge…pretty self explanatory
  3. Save 300 dollars in 3 months challenge.  Okay again pretty self-explanatory, but what could be cool is to involve the entire family by setting up a jar for donations to the goal. If everyone contributes to the goal, make how you then spend it a family affair.

Okay so those are my three.

I now CHALLENGE you to add a few ideas of your own in the comments below.

Just so you know I mean business, I will select one of the suggestions from the comments and take YOUR challenge next month… (But only if you will do it with me….) I may even harass a few other CareOne Debt Relief employees to do it with me (insert evil laugh here!)

Who’s with me???

About Suzanne Coblentz

8 Responses to “Will You Accept the Challenge?”

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  1. Ali says:

    Great idea. Here are two more challenge ideas:

    – track your spending for an entire month (helps to see where you can cut and start saving).

    – if you spend money on a non-essential item (beer, wine, latte, movies), you have to put the same amount in a savings jar. And I use the term “non-essential” loosely when I attach it to beer and wine.

    Can’t wait to see other ideas.

  2. Monica says:

    Increase or set up your automatic savings. Most of us do have some money left over every paycheck even if it is only $5. By setting up an automatic savings you will find your money will grow.

  3. Reduce your grocery budget by 25% for a month. For us, that would be a reduction of $43.75.
    I am going to try your “Don’t eat out for an entire month” challenge. That hits my biggest weakness.
    I really like your idea of a 30-day financial fitness challenge. For those of us on a long journey out of debt, it breaks up the monotony – like interval training. Thanks!

    • Hi Prudence,

      Oh trying to reduce by a certain % is good idea too! That feels completely doable too. Thanks so much, I really do like these challenges and why not use the same concept to boost financial goals? Appreciate the feedback and the idea 🙂

  4. dojo says:

    I’m in. It shouldn’t be too difficult, since we don’t usually splurge, we don’t eat out and we’ll really need to save more than $300/month for our upcoming birth. Can’t wait to see how we fare at the end of the challenge. Best of luck to everyone 😉

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