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Would you believe me if I said, a Louis Vuitton handbag inspired me to start a savings account?
Yes, I am serious, LOL!
A few years ago, I paid off the balances on all of my credit cards. As a reward to myself, I decided to purchase a Louis Vuitton Speedy 30 Handbag in Damier Azur Canvas! I researched the cost of the handbag, created a budget and I developed a plan to place money aside to purchase this bag. Louis Vuitton handbags are expensive.
I started by setting $25.00 to the side in October. By December, the balance in my savings account grew to $75.00. I am impatient. LOL. I realized that if I kept saving at this rate, it would take me two and a half years to save up for this handbag. This was not going to work, I want to hold my bag in my hands like RIGHT NOW! LOL. I needed to find another way to save but I was unsure of how to start.
52 Week Money Challenge
I have a Bachelors and Masters degree and I am extremely underpaid. My gross income is equivalent to a starting teacher’s salary. No disrespect to teachers but working in accounting/finance with higher level degrees and experience, my salary was well below average for someone in my field.
Prior to starting this challenge, my money was tied up. Half was going towards bills and the other half was going towards student loans and credit card debt.
I learned about the 52 Week Money Challenge by way of Instagram. In 52 weeks you can save $1378.00!!! The challenge works like this, for the first week of the challenge, you would save $1.00. For the second week, you would save $2, etc. At the end of your 52 weeks, you will have $1378.00 accumulated in your savings account.
As I completed the challenge, I got excited about watching my money grow. I reached a point where I completely forgot about the purse, I was more focused on watching the numbers double and triple in value.
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Start an emergency fund, start a savings fund. It will be worth it in the end.
If you have a goal in mind, give this money challenge a try. For instance, you don’t have an established emergency fund, give this challenge a try. Start today, think about it this way. When you’re in need of money, it seems like money is extremely hard to find and those who have it aren’t trying to part with it. Honestly, it’s their money, can you blame them?
Check out my success story below about being able to pay in full for an unexpected expense.
How to Start A Savings Account
Starting a savings account can be difficult, but not impossible.
Since I was not used to saving money, I needed to change my thought process about saving money. When it was time to make the deposit into my savings account:
(1) – I paid myself first! To do this you should associate saving money with paying bills. Every two weeks when I got paid, I immediately transferred the funds into a savings account. Tip: If you’re able to set up a direct payment from your account – do it! IT makes things so much easier.
(2) – I used a different bank to house my savings account. I opened an account with Ally Bank. This decision worked best for me because the bank is online and it has a reputation for having great interest rates!
(3) – Schedule automatic transfers. I scheduled all of my bank transfers. On paydays, I didn’t worry about transferring the money from one account to the other. The automatic transfers made things easy!
The 52 Week Money Challenge was fun! I looked forward to crossing off each item on the worksheet. I’ll admit, the beginning was rough. I had to get used to paying myself. By the time I reached the third month, making the transfers came naturally to me.
Goal Accomplished!!
At the end of the challenge, I exceeded my expectations and saved $1,500.00 (Wooooo-Hoooooo)! I am ready to buy this handbag. A few days later, I went to the mall and I walked up to the Louis Vuitton store. As I approached the entrance of the store, I could not take another step. I was literally standing in one spot.
Click Here To download the 52 Week Money Challenge Worksheet
At that moment, I decided I wanted to keep the money in my savings account and watch it grow. It felt GREAT knowing that I had a savings account with $1,500.00 in it. I worked hard to save money in this account, I was not ready to give it up. In fact, I wanted to make it grow.
Three years later, I had a savings account with $5,000.00 in it. Now that I have a savings account with a decent amount of money in it, I cant help but to wonder why I didn’t start this sooner?!
Ironically one year later, the A/C abruptly goes out in my car. I live in Florida and air condition for those hot days (which is about 90% of the time) is a necessity! It felt great knowing that, I had money saved in savings account and I pay cash to repair my air conditioner. Knowing that I had money in my account for an unexpected expense was awesome. I’ve been on the other side PLENTY of times and let’s just say it felt good paying this item off in full and not having to worry about it.
How did you start your savings account? Do you have more than 1 savings account? What are your savings account goals?
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