If saving money is on your New Year’s resolution list, one woman has the perfect method you can try – and all you need to start is a B&M money tin and some paper
Saving more money is likely to be a common New Year’s resolution for many, but with the cost-of-living crisis still rumbling in the background, it can be challenging to know where to start.
But one content creator has shared a way you can save up for the 52 weeks of 2025, and it’s a way you won’t be able to give into spending temptation – even if you wanted to.
Michelle Donnelly shared that she was doing the 52-week money-saving challenge, admitting that she’d tried it before using online banking. However, she said it was “too easy” to simply transfer the money out when the going got tough, and cash was tight, so she went old school and purchased a money tin from B&M to eliminate the likelihood of taking money from it.
“I thought I’d go to B&M, pick up one of the money tins, along with A3 paper and write out the money-saving chart myself and add the money into this tin so it’s not as easy to take the money out; we’ll just have to wait until the end of the challenge,” Michelle said as she wrote everything up on the chart by hand.
She then explained how the money-saving challenge works for people who don’t know. “Each week, so week one, you put £1, week two, £2, and so on”, she shared, meaning that by week 52 of the year, you’ll be putting £52 physically into your money tin.
“By the end of it, you’ll actually have £1,378,” Michelle shared, motivating others to start saving themselves. However, in the comments, someone did point out a small flaw with the system that may discourage some from saving.
They wrote: “Better to work this backwards and start with £52. That way, the nearer Christmas, the less you need to put in. I am going to do this”. But someone else said that people tend to be “skint” in January, so it was going to be tricky to follow regardless of which way around you did it.
Another added that they’d done something similar, but rather than a pound amount corresponding to the week of the year, they’d decided to save pennies. They shared: “I did this but the penny a day challenge, so day one, 1p, day two, 2p, day three, 3p, and so on, at the end of the year, I had £667 saved”.
One TikToker shared that there was a different method they would prefer to use, penning: “I would rather take the total amount £1,300 and divide it by 52, for an even £25 per week.”
Somebody else also pointed out that it would be easy to cheat by “just opening the tin”, but Michelle said that would be “pointless” and you’ve got to show self-restraint, which is easier when it’s physical money and not online banking.
