Save $2 per day
I think from all the ways I’ve tried to save up money over the years this is probably the easiest to get started with.
The title is pretty self-explanatory, the goal here is to save just $2 per day, every day. This might sound stupid at first, or it might seem like you’ll never save enough, but putting aside just $2 every day is a great way to get started in the habit of saving.
The important thing here is to be consistent and do it every day. Don’t just save up $10 one day and think to yourself “cool, I’m done for the week”. If you do that you’ll end up with the same amount of money, sure, but you won’t be building a habit out of it which is what will really be useful when you move to more challenging saving plans.
How much money can you save?
So how much money can you save if you put apart $2 per day?
$2 per day will have virtually cero impact on you day to day life, however when added over time the savings can really add up to something meaningful.
The good thing about this technique is that since you are saving a fixed amount is very easy to calculate how much you’ll manage to save over any period of time. So lets take a closer look at those numbers.
- 1 month $60
- 3 months $180
- 6 months $360
- 12 months $720
So, as you can see, by saving just $2 per day, every day, in just one month you could maybe invite a friend for dinner, or even buy some stock from several companies if you are into investing (remember investing is not saving). Intel, Twitter, Zynga, Hewlett Packard or Western Digital just to name a few all have stocks under $60 at the time of writing this article.
Things only gets better from here. In just three months you’ll have saved enough to get yourself a pair of ear pods, or after six months you could get yourself a really nice compact digital camera.
And finally after a year of saving $2 per day, every day, you’ll have saved enough money to almost get yourself a brand new iPhone (the iPone XR is just $749 at the time of writing this article) or treat yourself to a nice weekend away from the routine.
Not bad for just $2 per day, right?
Tweaking this saving technique
The main goal of this saving technique is not only to save some money but most importantly to build the habit of saving. So the amount you save each day isn’t really that important, the important part is that you save every day.
With this in mind you can adjust the daily amount you want to save to better fit your own financial situation. $2 a day should be doable for most and will have very little to no impact on your daily life (if you live in a developed country that is, of course).
If you are a student or are struggling to make ends meet each month you might want to start by saving just 1€ every day. Sure you’ll only save up half the money, but you’ll be building the habit of saving just as much.
On the other hand if you feel like you can easily put apart $3, $4, $5… per day you can definitely do so.
Just remember that although seeing your savings increase faster might be tempting the goal here is not to save a lot but to build a habit out of saving, so make sure you don’t set yourself up to save more than you can afford per day. If you set your number too high you might get discouraged and give up saving altogether, whereas if you set the number low enough that it won’t have an impact on your daily life it will be much easier for you to stick to the plan.