Overspent during the festive season? The new year bills are coming in already and pay day seems to be in the distant future. KalliKids Champion Carly has some tips on how to save money in 2016.

As a result, you have probably noticed an increased number of posts and blogs all over your social feeds about saving money. January is probably the month you may think about saving money the most, especially if there is a guilt factor around December’s spending habits. A New Year lies ahead and with that comes new dreams and goals perhaps even the desire for a new attitude towards finances.

Saving Scenario 1 – 365 Day Penny Challenge

A popular saving scheme that some people have started to already implement is the 365 day penny challenge. I was considering doing this as it seemed so simple to start by saving 1p and increasing that by 1p every day for the entire year. Here is what it looks like:

Day 1 – Save 1p

Day 2 – Save 2p

Day 3 – Save 3p

Day 364 – Save £3.64

Day 365 – Save £3.65

Initially this seems like a very easy way to save the pennies each day, as its literally saving small change lying around the house, the car or the bottom of your handbag. However as you start getting to the end of the year you will have to find £95.85 and £108.50 of loose change lying around in November and December respectively. Of course if you can save like this, then you will have a nice little pot of over £667 to spend on those January sales next year.

I thought of some alternatives that would still only require saving the pennies and you would still end up with a few hundred pounds at the end of the year. I believe that these are a bit more sustainable to stick to, especially at the end of the year when all extra cash is being spent anyway.

Saving Scenerio 2 – 52 Weeks of Simple Savings

This is a straightforward way to save your pennies and turn them into hundreds of pounds by simply putting one pound into your savings jar on a Monday and adding 10p to the total daily.

Monday – Save £1

Tuesday – Add £1.10

Wednesday – Add £1.20

Add 10p extra each day and by Sunday you will have saved £9.40. Repeat each week saving your coins and loose change, starting back with £1 on a Monday. If you do this for the entire 52 weeks of the year you will have £473.20 in your savings jar, just from change!

Extra Bonus

If you think you can match these coin savings with a £10 note from your purse or left over in your grocery budget, then drop 10 pounds into your jar every Sunday too, or as often as possible to more than double the figure by the end of the year.

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If you like the idea of starting small and adding to it daily, then you could extend this from a weekly thing to a monthly thing, only starting fresh at the beginning of each month again with your desired amount. Your saving plan for coins could look something like this:

Day 1 – 10p

Day 2 – 20p

Day 29 - £2.90

Day 30 - £3.00

Day 31 - £3.10

What I did realise though is that like the 365 Day Penny Challenge, as you near the end of he month, the savings increase and that is not ideal as most of us have more money at the beginning of the month, than at the end. So you can flip it on its head and start by saving the £3.10 on Day 1 and finish off the month saving just 10p on the last day of the month. I think it works really well to count down the amount too instead of worrying about having to find even more change than the previous day, you will have to find less.

These are just some of the ways in which your small change can turn into hundreds of pounds by the end of the year with some planning and effort. You may prefer to come up with your own savings plan for any loose change lying around the house and if you wanted to get your kids involved you could do a coin hunt around the house each month to gather up any extra change that is hiding in the house. Depending on how much they help you find and collect perhaps they can get a little treat out of it and the rest goes into the savings jar.

I hope this has given you some ideas to get started but f you have other great tips and ideas of how to start a small savings jar for coins then please feel free to share them.

Mum of 2 Carly lives in Wokingham and helps KalliKids connect parents with the best activities in their local area. Follow the Berkshire local Facebook page for update information on activities or contact Carly here