Slow Motion Is Better Than No Motion

I walked in the crib, got two kids and my baby momma late, (uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh).  So I had to did, what I had to did cause I had to get (dough, dough, dough).  I'm up all night getting my money right, until the blue and whites (po-po, po-po, po-po).  Now the money coming slow, but at least a n!@@a know Slow motion better than (no-oh, no-oh, no-oh) - The Food, Common ft. Kanye West

I'll keep repeating it until people start to get it.  Slow motion is better than no motion; baby steps are still progress.  Never get so discouraged that you give up.  Let me tell you a secret, nobody is perfect, everyone messes up.  The key is that you keep going and push through it.  Have you ever set a goal you want to achieve?  You have to keep that goal in front of you, inspiring you everyday until you achieve it.  Successful people are tenacious.  If you are on this journey with me I implore you to keep going.  I will not stop until I am debt free.  Knowing how much money I will be able to save, invest and give away once I meet this goal keeps me going.  I am 6 months into this journey, I've paid off 20% of my debt.  I had a couple of unexpected setbacks but because I have my emergency fund I was able to pay for them with cash and keep going.  The key is having an emergency fund so you don't increase your debt by paying for unexpected things with a credit card.  So where am I now?  This year I'm focused on paying off my last two credit cards and my car note.  This is a very ambitious goal because even without the unexpected setbacks I'm not scheduled to pay off my car until April 2019 according to my debt snowball.  I'm challenging myself, we will see if I make this goal.  

So, let's talk emergency funds.  We all need an emergency fund because life happens.  If you haven't been able to save up for an emergency fund I want to share a challenge that may make it easier to save.  The 52-week Money Challenge is normally used for New Year's Resolutions but you can start anytime.  The idea is that you save $1 in the first week, then gradually increase your savings a dollar each week throughout the year.  So you save $2 the second week, $3 the third week, etc..  By the end of 52 weeks you will have saved a total of $1,378.00.  The biggest complaint from people who take on this challenge is that you are saving $49, $50, $51 and $52 in the month of December.  We all know December is usually the month people spend the most money.  Starting this challenge in March or April would be ideal because people normally get their tax refunds in these months making the larger dollar amounts easier to save.  But you can also hack this challenge in many different ways, you can go in reverse/descending order, starting with $52 in the first week.  Another option is printing out the chart and choosing a different amount each week, based on how much money you have, and crossing off each amount that you save until you go through all 52 weeks.  Below is the chart of how it works and this link is to the original article I read on the website called The Financial Diet that introduced me to this challenge.  Anybody want to try this challenge?  If you have tried it before, how did you do?  What did you like and/or dislike about it?