Last week, Graham from Moneystepper launched the Moneystepper 2015 Savings Challenge where anyone, from anywhere in the world, in whatever financial situation they may be in, is invited to come together and work as a community to accelerate their journey on the path to financial freedom.
To keep things succinct, the key points of the challenge can be summarized as follows:
- Everyone strives towards the same two goals. These goals are designed to be appropriate for EVERYONE. They are:
- % Increase In Net Wealth
- Savings Rate %
These percentages have been designed to be appropriate (and comparable) for everyone: from people paying down mountains of debt to multi-millionaires.
- Each participant submits their two percentages before the start of the year, and their progress against their goals each month.
- The results are released monthly and everyone will be “grouped” with people who are of a similar net wealth (although participants’ net wealth will never be published) and who have similar goals.
Simple enough, right? But, hugely powerful – believe me!
Benefits for Participants
What are the benefits for participants?
Well, I’ve talked about this at length in our introduction post to the challenge and also in the introduction episode of our new podcast.
However, the two most important aspects are:
- Measurability – As many of you will already know, and already prove with your monthly net wealth updates, one of the biggest drivers in improving your financial position is by measuring your progress. By tracking your net wealth and savings rate, you can more clearly see where your money is going and where it is being wasted.
- Accountability – Again, this second aspect, is often well understood by us bloggers, but not so much by our audience. Being accountable to others stops you from making silly decisions. Having a big group of people to answer to when you mess up is the best way I have ever found to make sure I double-check and triple-check every financial decision I make.
Benefits for Participants Who Also Happen To Be Personal Finance Bloggers
The benefits don’t end there! For the Yakezie community, there are a great number of additional benefits to participating actively in this challenge with us.
- Access to community – Our goal with the challenge is to get hundreds, if not thousands of people around the world together in this challenge. This will create a huge, active community where all the members have a keen interest in improving their finances and learning more about ways that they can save money, earn more money and work towards financial freedom. This probably sounds like your target audience, right?
- Access to similar people – In the summary, we mentioned grouped results. The final number of participants will determine the number of groups we have, but it goes without saying that people in the challenge will be very interested to see what people who have a similar net wealth and similar goals are doing. I know if I was falling behind my goals, and the person in the same group as me were smashing theirs, I would want to know how. They will easily be able to each month, because of….
- The Badge – Anyone who includes the challenge “badge” on their site (you will receive this via email when you submit your goals) will obtain a follow link from the results page every month. This should drive interested readers to your site, but also a good amount of “google juice”, or whatever you might want to call it.
- Blog interviews – Additionally, we shall be “featuring” a member of the community every week during the challenge where they will share their goals, their progress and any hints and tips they may have. This interview will be shared with the entire audience on the website (and via email) and will again open up a new audience for your site.
- Podcasts – The website is not the only media we’ll be using. A podcast will also be released every fortnight, with two guests featuring on each podcast. Therefore, another audience through iTunes possibly awaits anyone who is willing to feature on the podcast. And that chance starts today. This week, we are recording a podcast about goals. If you want to feature, you can send me a short clip explaining why you think goals are so important. See this Yakezie forum post on this for more detail.
How Do I Join The Challenge?
If you wish to join the challenge, then head on over to our 2015 savings challenge and submit your goals using the form. Otherwise, get in contact via email or on the forums if you have any questions, or more importantly if you have any ideas how I can make this even better for the Yakezie and general Personal Finance Blogger community.
This community will be designed to be the best it can be for everyone in the community. Want to see something – all you need to do is ask…
Sounds interesting, will think about it. I quit my job a month and plan to travel around Asia for 6+ months while working on my websites. So I’m bit worried about being embarrassed by my progress :)
It’d be great to have you along Jakub. As I cover in our FAQs podcast, the challenge may be even more useful people in a similar situation as yourself. You don’t need to aim for a huge increase in your net wealth, etc.
But, setting a goal so that your net wealth doesn’t fall by a certain amount when you are travelling around Asia may be your goal that you set and the challenge is designed in such a way to be appropriate for everyone.
If you’ve got any specific questions, give me a shout mate.
Great initiative Graham! It’s a no brainer to try and achieve financial goals together.
Thanks Sam! I can’t wait to get started in January and hope that I have hundreds of people in the community striving to achieve their goals together!
Great initiative. It feels good to set financial goals that have specific targets as that really helps stay on task and keep pushing forward. I’m still figuring out my job situation so I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to tuck away and grow, but I’m definitely in savings mode!
Sounds good! Sometimes having accountability will help you grow your wealth more consistently. Over time, I’ve found whenever I set specific, actionable goals and write them down; they become a reality!! The only caveat I’d like to throw out is that if the markets experience a drop in 2015, that may impact one’s short term net worth. But….. also provide an opportunity to buy more shares at lower (on sale ) prices.
Good point Barb! Hopefully, this is where the accountability as part of a larger group will help. If you are X% behind your goals because the markets have crashed, you’ll be comparable to many others in a similar situation and you’ll be able to discuss your situation with others. Hopefully, this will actually help with avoiding “short-termism” if a market crash does happen!
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