More Money Challenge: Can You Do It?
30 Days. Track Your Spending. Only Buy Essentials. No Eating Out.
If you’re craving a reset for your finances, join our More Money Challenge to start fresh.
Are You Ready for a Reset?
A lot of us might be sitting there feeling a little complacent with our financial situation—a little stuck—with a strong desire for more simplicity, better money habits, or a better optimized setup in the new year. Maybe you need a push to clean up a few things from last year, or get a handle on your money for the coming year.
This challenge is just the thing to make that itch go away, push the reset button hard, and make some real progress to shake you out of your current status quo.
This is honestly the challenge I didn’t know how much I needed.
-Sarah
Introducing the More Money Challenge
For 30 days, we challenge you to follow three rules each and every day that will reset your money, your mindset, and make a tangible difference in your current financial state. Do these three things every day:
- Track your spending (if you’re a YNABer, you’re already doing this part!)
- Only buy essentials (you decide what your essentials are).
- No eating out (yeah I know, this last one is painful. I didn’t say this would be easy).
But what we’ve seen is by the end of 30 days, people have $1,000 or more. And whatever you wished were different about your financial situation, use the money you save to make that change.
How It Works
- Sign up for the challenge.
- You’ll get an email confirmation with a link to your More Money Challenge Workbook. It’s a pretty workbook. Fill it out, it will help you complete the challenge.
- Add your challenge goal in the workbook before you start and set your spending rules.
- You’ll also get an invite to join the challenge community.
- You’ll follow the three rules daily for 30 days.
- After 30 days, use the money saved to complete your goal.
The average participant saves $1,000 or more.
We ran the challenge on our team and the results were pretty incredible:
- Kelly saved $1,789 by not spending from specific categories that were deemed “non-essential.”
- Shannon saved $900 and finally got her husband more involved with the budget!
- Veronica saved $3,850, a decent chunk of that was from holding a garage sale and selling a pop-up camper
- Meghan saved $1000 on the dot! “It was tough toward the end but, I wanted an even $1,000 so I made it happen.“
- Chrissy saved $2,200 through selling things, saving money, and receiving an unexpected windfall.
- Blair saved $3,259: “Ours was all from challenging assumptions.”
I’ve truly never been more in-tune with my budget than during this challenge.
-Hannah
And we all know it’s not just about the money, it’s about what you DO with that money that makes all the difference. See what that money did:
- Chrissy paid off her last debt.
- Kait bought the paddleboard she’d been meaning to buy, but had never gotten around to it.
- Jen was able to pay for an unexpected tax bill.
- Amanda created a Major Home Repairs/Improvement category and put some money toward college savings.
- Rene bought gifts for family members and an air purifier that was leftover from a wedding wishlist four years ago!
- Shannon took her husband on a surprise $100 Target shopping spree with some of the money from the challenge. “He just about died of excitement.”
And these incredible results are all from long-time YNABers who already have their spending and saving dialed in!
What to Expect
Before You Start
There will be nerves. You might feel a little overwhelmed. You might be saying to yourself “There’s no possible way. Can I actually do this?”
A few frantic Amazon orders will be placed before the challenge officially starts (I’m not telling you that you should do this. But you likely will do this. Because that’s exactly what we did during the beta test of this challenge).
Day 1
The challenge officially kicks off and you’ll start your day one. Your brain will be buzzing at the ready: what can you save? What can you sell? What can you cancel? Your engine is revving to stockpile cash at a wild rate: and that’s just the energy we want. Take that motivation and run with it.
Day 5
You will want to buy SO MANY things. Instagram is just a siren call of products—they just know you so well. During this time, we find keeping a list of all the things you wish you could pay assuages the desire a wee bit. Thumb through that workbook you got with the challenge—there’s a spot for such a list!
Day 12
You’ve been going at this for almost two weeks and the progress is pretty noticeable at this point. Your spending trends are half what they usually are and the money is accumulating! Go progress, go!
Day 17
There will be some agony. Somewhere along the way you will be SO tired of cooking at home. All your heart will want is a Starbucks coffee (money in your app counts as free, yes? I say yes). Keep sprinting: we know your legs are burning at this point but just keep going. It won’t last forever.
Day 24
Loopholes will be sought out and sometimes found. Does it count if I tell the babysitter to pick me up Starbucks on the way over and then she just happens to get paid a little extra that day? I’m not buying coffee. Not me!
Day 28
You’re so close. So, so close. You can’t wait to order takeout. Heck you might even have it delivered. You don’t even care how much it costs because you’ll have saved so much money.
This challenge has been a really wonderful reset for me! I think I had sort of “plateaued” and I hadn’t been looking for opportunities for improvement or increased mindfulness.
-Emily C
Day 30
It’s your last day. It breezes by. You’ve gotten pretty good at this. You feel settled, pleased, impressed with yourself. And tomorrow is a whole new day.
Day 31
You’re done. You crossed the finish line. And wait, HOW MUCH did you save? Your jaw drops open. Success. You buy the thing. Pay off the debt. Stock the cash away for safe-keeping. You feel accomplished, safer, more secure. Delighted! That plateau is no more. You feel lighter, more confident, and dang, you can’t wait to order takeout.
Ready to reset? Learn more about the challenge, or take the plunge by joining below!
