If you are looking to improve your finances you can find a bazillion tips on ways to save money, make money and change how you handle your money.  The problem is, this can all be a bit overwhelming if you are new to the game.

Instead of reading a bunch of information, getting overwhelmed and not implementing it, what if you only had to focus on one task every month?  Much more doable, right?!

The assumption here is you already have your budget set up (meaning you are living on a written plan) and you are looking for ways to improve your money in the upcoming year.

If you do not have your budget set up yet, check out:

What is a Zero-Based Budget and Why Does it Work

How to Set Up a Zero-Based Budget Without Wanting to Rip Your Hair Out

10 Minute Basic Budget Setup

These 12 challenges will help you save money, make money and handle your money better, but all in bite size chunks!  If you really focus on one thing at a time, you are going to find you are in a better place with your money by this time next year.

This isn’t just about saving money.  This is about changing some of your behaviors to form better spending habits, help you realize you can survive on less than you thought you could and you can be better prepared for expenses than you even thought was possible.

Some of these challenges will be simple and others will require more effort.  I promise, if you take them one per month, they won’t be overwhelming and you will see results!

In order for you to have quick access to these challenges, I have created a cute cheat sheet for you to print out and post in a high traffic area.  I recommend putting it by your calendar, on your fridge or in your workspace. You can get the FREE printable below.

You can start these challenges at any time.  January is always a nice time to start, but you can begin in May if that’s when you are reading this.  Just begin with the month you are starting in and continue throughout the year.

12 Money Challenges to Improve Your Finances:

January:  Make a Christmas sinking fund.

Now is the time!  You know Christmas is just 12 months away, so start planning now!  Take a minute to sit down, think about how much you want to spend on Christmas next year and write it down.  It can be very helpful to look at how much you spent last year. Do you want to spend around the same amount?  Have more money for Christmas this coming year? Or did you go overboard and need to cut back a little?

Whatever you decide, write that amount down (so you remember come Christmas time) and divide it by 12.  That is how much you need to save every month to have all of your funds in place by the time Christmas arrives.

Figure out where you will keep the money.  You could have a savings account within your bank, keep cash in an envelope all year or open up a completely new bank account specifically for this.

I did this for a while before I realized it was called a sinking fund.  These funds (mini saving accounts) for expenses we know we are going to have a complete life saver!

To learn more, start here:

5 Reasons You Need Sinking Funds

13 Sinking Funds Categories You Need In Your Budget

How to Effectively Use Sinking Funds

How to Track Your Sinking Funds

February:  Shop for new car insurance.

Did you know you should be shopping for new car insurance every time it’s up for renewal?  Chances are you haven’t been doing this and you are missing out on some major savings! According to Dave Ramsey, you could be missing out on a savings of $700 (on average)!

The key to this is not to shop within your company you are already carrying your insurance through.  You need to use an independent insurance agent. These agents will shop every policy with every company that is out there and tell you your best rates/options.  They are not limited in any way and will find you the best deal.

If you have been holding onto the same policy for years, trade that puppy in for something cheaper!  Chances are, you are paying way more than you need to be!

March:  Stop all eating out.

Man, this one can be painful.  Sorry, I chose one of the long months to do it in too!  Guess what?! You will totally survive this! But, you can not eat anywhere except your home or out of a brown bag filled with food that came from your home.

This even means the deli at the grocery store is off limits.  No chicken tenders and mac ‘n cheese from them.

No fast food.

No restaurants.

No eating out for one month.  I promise you won’t starve.

If your friends or family want to eat out, you can blame this all on me!  Instead of you saying, “it’s not in the budget.” You can tell them you are doing an amazing money challenge to improve your finances and they can join the challenge too, but you won’t be eating out.

You got this!

April:  Become a member of your local library.

This may seem silly, but I want you to go to the local library, get a library card, then look at their selection of books and movies.  Instead of trying to entertain yourself with expensive activities, going to the movies, renting movies from Redbox; I want you to find a book to read or a movie to check out from the library.

All of your entertainment for the month will be from the library, for free.  You may just find, you have more to do at the library than you could have found anywhere else.

If you have little kids, check out their activities schedule for readings and crafts.  This can be a great way to keep the kids entertained with no added cost and you get to leave your house!

May:  Meal plan.

I want you to cut your grocery budget in half with meal planning!  This month you will put together a meal plan with the cheapest possible meals you can come up with.  Whatever your previous food budget was, try to cut it by 25%-50%.

If you have already been meal planning, your goal is to cut down your spending by doing dirt cheap meals.  This is my cheapest monthly meal plan for a family of four.

If you haven’t meal planned before, read:

What’s for Dinner?  How to Easily Plan a Month of Meals

Monthly Meal Plan on a Budget:  Less Than $100 For Dinners For a Family of 4

The Life Saving 12-Week Rotating Meal Plan

You can absolutely do this.  Will you eat more pasta this month than you are used to?  Probably! Make this fun and get the whole family involved!  Go cheap and be excited about it!

Don’t worry about how you are going to pull this off.  I have a meal plan calendar, meal plan theme nights to inspire you, and a free $100 meal plan with a shopping list included!  Just sign up below for instant access!

June:  Do not purchase any clothes.

Clothing is a necessary part of life, but you don’t need to buy it all the time.  If you are accustomed to picking up a few clothing items here and there whenever you run across something, you are likely spending more than you need to on clothes.

My husband and I did a 2-year clothing spending freeze you can read more about here.  I’m not saying you have to do that too. But, not buying clothes for two years helped us realize we had been spending way too much time and money shopping.

Focus on not buying any clothes for one month and see how you feel.  If you are inspired by it, make a challenge to yourself to not buy clothes for 3 months.  You are going to save so much money when you keep yourself from buying stuff you probably can do without!

July:  Do all of your non-food shopping online.

We all know when we go into stores, they are set up to get us to buy things.  This holds true for not just grocery stores, but all stores. This month when you are making your list of toiletry, cosmetic and household items you need, I want you to buy all of it online and not step foot in a store.

This can be a great way to save money!  Not to call out any single store, but if you normally do your shopping at Target (or even Walmart), chances are, you mosey through the Dollar section right when you walk in and have an empty cart that just looks so sad.  Maybe you swing through Starbucks because you want a little pick-me-up for your shopping experience. On your way to the kitty litter, you see the newest limited edition plug-ins that you definitely need now that you are seeing them.

Look at that!  You have been in the store for 5 minutes and have a $7 drink, $20 worth of one dollar trinkets and $10 of plugins for your home you hadn’t intended to buy.  See how quickly this happens??

Instead of going through all that, make your shopping list at home, get online and make your order from home.  Also, you can only make one order this month so make sure you don’t forget anything. It will all be shipped directly to you and you will have no in-store temptations to fight.    Boom! Money saved!

August:  Come up with a way to make some extra money.

There are tons of ways to make money nowadays.  You can take online surveys, sell your own stuff, utilize websites like Upwork if you have basically any marketable skill.  The list goes on and on.

If you are in need of more money, you can look into longer-term gigs like online teaching, delivering pizzas, driving for Uber, etc.

My favorite way to make extra money is to sell your stuff.  I have made thousands getting rid of junk I don’t want. It’s super easy now with Facebook Marketplace.  Just take a picture and sell it.

I don’t care what you end up doing, but you have to make extra money this month.  Who knows, you may even stumble upon a new side hustle that will help you reach your financial goals that much faster!

Related Post:

3 Amazing Benefits of Selling Your Stuff

September:  Decrease your driving.

Gas can eat up your income like nobody’s business.  Think about how much driving you are currently doing and if you could be doing less.  Chances are, the answer is yes. We all can do so much unnecessary travel.

This month you will spend some time thinking about how to cut your driving down by 25%-50%. This may mean you set up work or school carpools.  You may have to grocery shop once in the month and order all toiletries online. Plan your errands to do everything in one outing instead of multiple trips on different days.

If you would be driving somewhere close, could you ride a bike or walk instead?  Get creative on ways to cut down your driving and watch those gas savings come pouring in!

October:  Grocery shop one time for the month.

Grocery shopping once a month is one of my favorite things.  It saves you time, effort, tons of money and your sanity! It will require you to plan ahead with your shopping list, but you will save so much money by not making multiple trips to the store.

Every time you walk into a store, there is a chance you are going to pick up little odds and ends that will end up costing you way more every month than what you had actually planned on.  When you grocery shop once a month, the temptation to buy unnecessary things is completely gone.

After one trip to the grocery store, you are done and you will be saving tons of time and money.  I would bet after trying this for one month, you will be hooked! This is one of the ways I keep our grocery budget so low.

Related Post:

How Grocery Shopping Once a Month Saves You Time and Money

November:  Unsubscribe from all consumer emails.

This month is all about decreasing outside influences in your life.  I must have been subscribed to 50-100 different store emails at one point.  You know, places you shop say, “Put in your email if you want us to send you coupons!”  Places like Old Navy, Bath and Body Works, Shutterfly, Zazzle, L’Occitane, etc.

What these stores should be saying is, “Do you want to sign up for our email list?  We are going to send you an email every day with a new deal to lure you into shopping with us.  Every day we send you an email is another chance to wear you down and convince you to spend your money on stuff you don’t need!”

Sound about right?

These emails are just more advertising that will tempt you into more online shopping than you would normally do.  So, I want you to cut them out! Unsubscribe from all of those unnecessary ads and sale alerts. You don’t need them.

December:  Set up sinking funds for the coming year.

The end of the year is the perfect time to take a look back over the past year and prepare for the next one.  Sinking funds are the perfect way to ensure you have money for all of your infrequent, expected expenses for the coming year.

Sinking funds are so amazing!  These are basically mini saving accounts to have the money available for those expenses you know are coming, but they don’t happen every month.  These are things like gifts (Christmas), medical, dentist, water/sewer, vehicle maintenance, clothes, association dues, vacation, etc.

Take some time to sit down and look through all your previous transactions for the year.  Look for those infrequent expenses you ran into and make a list of

• What the expense was
• When it happened
• How much it cost

You will have to determine which things you will need to save for that you know you happen again the next year.  Make a fund for each and determine the amount you need to save. To learn how to set up and track your sinking funds, check out the posts below.

The goal of the sinking funds is to take away any of your “unexpected” expenses that tend to surprise you even though you know they are coming.  No more stress. No more panic.

Related Posts:

5 Reasons You Need Sinking Funds

13 Sinking Funds Categories You Need In Your Budget

How to Effectively Use Sinking Funds

How to Track Your Sinking Funds

Bonus Challenge:  Set financial goals for the New Year.

Studies have shown you are more likely to actually follow through with your goals and resolutions if you write them down.  To make sure you have the most productive financial year ever, set some goals for what you want to accomplish in the coming year.

It is super important to set very specific financial goals so you have something measurable to look at and know where you are along your journey.

Related Post:

5 Reasons You Have to Set Specific Financial Goals if You Want to Go Somewhere in Life

Get started using our FREE Financial Goal Setting Worksheet when you sign up below!

Have the best year ever when you work through these 12 Challenges!  Are you up for it?? Use our Awesome Challenge sheet to keep you on track throughout the year!

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