Here at the Money Mountain Goat HQ we’ve come up with a cool challenge which could save you as much as $6,000 over the next year.

This is not some funky get rich quick or pyramid scheme, but rather applying some intentionality to your spending in a nifty (and fun) way to help you reach your financial goals!

The #FruDayChallenge

The #FruDaychallenge is pretty simple, yet the results you are able to achieve could be amazing. By cutting spending to (or near) zero for one or two days per week, the cumulative effect over a month is pretty significant. Over a year, it’s quite astonishing. And over the next decade? Well, how does $60,000 in the bank sound?

The #FruDayChallenge borrows the principles of movements like ‘meat free Monday’ and popular fasting diets, and applies the concepts to financial health. For those who are not naturally frugal (like me!), I love life hacks which help get me to Financial Independence more quickly.

Ok, so let’s get into the detail of what to do:

  • Step 1: Check your budget and work out how much discretionary spending you have (i.e. money for groceries, eating out, food, entertainment etc.).
  • Step 2: Divide the total monthly number by the number of days in the month to give you a rough daily budget (i.e. $2,000 / 30 = $67).
  • Step 3: Choose one, and if you want to really supercharge your possible results, two days a week as your FruDay(s).
  • Step 4: Don’t spend any money on your FruDay(s)! Ziltch, nada, nothing.

By making this small, conscious, adjustment to your spending you can save a small fortune each month. Using the $2,000 budget example above:

  • you’d save $268 a month for one FruDay a week; and
  • you’d save $536 a month with two FruDays a week (based on a 4 week month).

Do that every other month and you’ll have up to an extra $3,216 in your savings accounts, better still, do it every month and you could increase your savings by almost $6,432 in a year. This is $64,320 over the next decade. WOW.

Choose your FruDays wisely

If you are anything like me, it would be pretty easy to cut spending on a week day, but most of my spending tends to balloon at the weekend.

Designating two weekdays as your FruDays will not give your savings that much of a boost. To make realistic gains, if you are aiming for one FruDay, it should really cover one day in the weekend (if you go for two FruDays, the other can be a week day).

What are the FruDay rules?

The #FruDayChallenge rules are simple. On your FruDays:

  1. Don’t spend any money from your discretionary spending budget
  2. For meals: try and use up things from your cupboards and freezer, or leftovers from earlier in the week
  3. For transport: try and walk, bike or use public transport (but keep the cost to what is absolutely necessary)
  4. For fun: get your friends to do the #FruDayChallenge with you and plan some free activities together – go for a run, go to a park, the beach, go hiking, go biking. BE CREATIVE!

Over time, the added benefit is that your FruDay good habits will train your frugality muscles and will likely permeate your thought process more broadly. These incremental changes will all add up over time achieving something pretty awesome.

We’d love to hear from you at MMG HQ if you take up the challenge. Tell us what was easy and what was hard. How much did you manage to save during your own #FruDayChallenge Post below or on our Facebook page.

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