Your Totally Doable Plan to Finish the Year $10,000 Richer

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Would you like to finish this year $10,000 richer than you started the year?

No, it’s not a trick question. If you’re interested in saving $10,000 to finish rich, we want to show you how!

Obvious fact (that we’re gonna state as a warning anyway): it’s gonna be a whole lot easier to finish the year rich if you start working on this plan early in the year.

Here’s a doability scale for finishing $10,000 richer, based on the month you start:

Starting in January? 100% doable!
February: Odds are great!
March: Still good.
April: Just ok.
May: Still doable for anyone willing to sacrifice to make it happen.
June: Gettin’ tricky.
July: Not for the faint of heart.
August: Downright hard.
September: Super hard.
October: Not impossible, but certainly improbable.
November: You may need to win the lottery.
December: Aim for next year!

So maybe don’t work on a calendar year. If you’re reading this in October, you can always aim to be 10K richer by this time next year, right?

Figure Out How Much to Save Per Month

How many months do you have left before the end of the year (that is, the end of your goal year – whether that’s the end of this calendar year or by your September birthday next year)?

Divide $10,000 by the number of months you have left in your year, and that’s how much you need to save every month to finish the year $10K richer.

If you only have 8 months left, you’d need to save $1,250/month. That’s a lot, I know. But still possible (more on how coming up!).

If you’re giving yourself a full 12 months to grow $10,000 richer, you just need to save $833.33/month. Lol, “just”… $833 is like a rent payment for many of us!

But I’m telling you, it’s 100% doable. You just need a strong approach.

Use our Double-Pronged Approach to Finish Rich

Have you ever tried to lose a few pounds? Then you know all about calorie deficits. Basically, you need to burn more calories than you eat. So you can either 1) eat way less, 2) exercise way more, or 3) eat a little less + exercise a little more. Double-pronging makes the process much more manageable.

You can do the same with your finish rich plan. Instead of figuring out how to 1) severely decrease your expenses or 2) majorly increase your income, double-prong it! Decrease your expenses a little and increase your income a little.

How Much to Cut and How Much to Earn

So, how much should you decrease your expenses and how much should you increase your income?

Should you split your monthly goal 50/50? Like, decrease your spending by half your goal amount + earn half your goal amount in income? Or should you weight one prong heavier than the other?

Generally, start with your expenses and decide how much you can reasonably cut every month. If you’re already living frugal, you may not have much more room to cut expenses. But if you know you can easily scrap cable, subscriptions, or other expenses to save a chunk of money each month, that’s obviously a big help.

Now, how much is left? That’s the amount you need to earn each month. Unlike expenses, which can only be cut to a certain point, income potential is limited only by your time and your willingness to hustle.

Even if you can only cut 10% of your monthly goal in expenses, and you have to earn 90% of your monthly goal. It can absolutely be done! I know; I’ve done it.

Ways to Cut Expenses so You can Finish Rich

There are hundreds of ways to cut your expenses, depending on what you spend your money on.

Here are some of the best places to start for quick progress:

Cut cable. It’s no longer necessary since you can get subscriptions to providers like Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Netflix at a fraction of the cost.
Renegotiate internet. Call your internet provider and let them know you’re thinking of canceling home internet and just using your mobile hotspot for everything. See how low they’ll drop their rates to keep you.
Prep your own meals. You’ll save a fortune compared to eating out.
Lower the temp on your water heater. Your water heater is probably keeping your water hotter than you’ll ever need it. What a waste.
Change insurance. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more yadda-yadda.

Need more ideas? Check out 35 Ways to Save Money THIS MONTH.

Ways to Increase Income so You can Finish Rich

If there are hundreds of ways to cut your expenses, there are thousands of ways to increase your income. Maybe millions.

You’re really only limited by your imagination! Well, that and the law…please don’t do anything illegal to make a buck.

If you need a little inspiration, check out some of our most popular posts on specific ways to increase your income.

Where to Stash Your Savings

Now…what to do with your savings? Keep it in your checking account? Savings account? Stock market?

Where should your money be stored?

Well, it depends on what you plan to do with your cool $10K. Let’s go over your options.

Checking Account?

Never, ever, ever keep your savings in your checking account. It’s too easy to lump your savings in with everything else and accidentally spend your hard earned savings on nonsense.

Savings Account?

Meh.

I can say for sure, don’t clump this money in with your emergency savings account (btw, your emergency savings account is a must for savvy money managers; if you don’t already have one, I strongly recommend putting some of your $10K toward your emergency fund).

But if you’re planning to use this money in the short-term (like for next year’s vacation or wedding), a savings account is a good, safe place for your money. Your money won’t grow in your savings account in the same way that it would grow in an investment account, but you also aren’t risking losing anything.

For a better option, consider…

Money Market Account?

Money market accounts are our top pick for short-term money storage. You get the same protections as with a savings account, but with a better interest rate, so your money can grow a little more.

CDs?

CDs (Certificates of Deposit) are great for medium-term dreams (dreams that will take 3-7 years to save for). If you’re saving to buy a house in 5 years, for example, you can buy a 5-year CD with your $10K. At today’s interest rates (3.6%), you can buy a 5-year $10,000 CD today, and cash it out 5 years from now for $11,934.35. That’s right; you could add almost $2,000 to your money just by letting it sit in a CD.

What’s the catch? The catch is that you can’t touch your money until the CD matures. In our example, if you get a 5-year CD, you can’t touch that money for 5 years (if you do, you’ll be hit with financial penalties). You can buy CDs for shorter periods of time, but they will come with smaller interest rates, so you won’t make as much money.

The good news about keeping your money unavailable is that you can’t accidentally spend it on something unrelated to your goal. You’ll have your emergency fund to bail you out of a bind, so tying up your dream fund money is actually a good thing.

The Stock Market?

We love the stock market! But only for long-term goals (over 7 years away), and mostly when done through Index Funds.

Index Funds are the beginner-friendly way to invest in the stock market. Investing in an Index Fund is like buying a sampler basket of a bunch of different stocks (like all the stocks on the S&P 500 Index, for example). This automatic diversification helps to protect you from the volatility of individual stocks.

Index funds are best for long-term investments because ups and downs naturally occur in the market, and you want to make sure you have time to wait out any low markets so you can sell your funds for more money when the market bounces back up.

The Magic Sauce

Now, I’m going to let you in on my secret to money success. It’s deceptively simple and insanely powerful. Ready to hear it?

The secret to finishing rich is…

Automation.

You need to set up your accounts to automatically move money to your $10K savings account (we’re calling it a savings account for simplicity, but it could be any of the account types we just talked about). This will prevent you from accidentally spending the money before you hit your goal.

We are usually our own worst enemies when it comes to money management. So we need to fool-proof our savings. And automation goes a long way toward making that happen. You’ll never have to remember to move your money from checking to savings. It will just magically happen thanks to the power of automation.

Set it and forget it!

Start with the monthly amount you’re cutting from your expenses. Create an automatic transfer to move that amount of money from your checking account to your savings account immediately after payday.

Then take care of your new income stream. If you’re getting paid through PayPal (as most freelancers are), you can set up an “Auto Sweep” to automatically transfer your PayPal income to your savings account every night.

Automation basically guarantees that you’ll finish rich!

Finish Rich Rules

To recap, here are the only rules you need to follow to finish the year $10K richer:

Know your numbers. How much do you need to cut from your expenses? And how much do you need to earn each month?
Hit your numbers. The expenses are easy. Simply transfer the money to savings at the beginning of the month so you literally can’t spend that money. With your earnings goal, you just have to hustle ’til you hit your number each month. If you finish the month short, make a plan to make up that shortfall next month.
Automate. To keep yourself from blowing any of your new income on a whim, have it auto-transferred to your savings account.
Don’t touch that savings! Once the money is in your savings account of choice, leave it alone until you hit your goal and you’re ready to spend that money on something meaningful.

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What are you going to do with your $10,000? Let us know in the comments!

Your Totally Doable Plan to Finish the Year $10,000 Richer

Figure Out How Much to Save Per Month