How To Save 10K In A Year : Rinse and Repeat Formula

So you want to save $10,000 in a year?

Excellent!

Having $10,000 set aside is a rewarding milestone.

An extra $10k in your pocket can jumpstart an emergency fund, pay down debts, or pay for a luxury vacation.

Whatever direction you are heading in, saving $10k is a great way to spark your wealth-building journey.

When beginning any savings goal, a great place to start is looking within your current income and expenses.

Assess if saving this amount, in the particular time frame, is attainable for you.

Once done, check your spending to get an idea of where your money is going and how much is being spent for each expense.

How You Can Save 10k in A Year

Break down your overall goal into smaller manageable amounts

According to your pay frequency, break down your big goal into smaller amounts and have a set savings amount that can be tackled on a daily, weekly, biweekly, or monthly basis.
Saving $10,000 in a year requires a monthly savings amount of $834, a biweekly goal of $385, a weekly goal of $193, and a daily goal of $27.40 (numbers are rounded up).
- Breaking down your savings goal will help to reduce overwhelm and make saving more achievable.

Review your expenses often and create a budget routine

Review your expenses consistently to determine where you can save more and where you can cut back; like reducing certain bills or eliminating unused subscriptions.
Create a budget routine and determine how much money you will put towards expenses and your savings goal periodically.
There are many different budget styles to choose from such as the 50/30/20 rule and the cash envelope method.
- A budget will allow you to stay on track and be aware of where your money is going.

Track your savings progress

Keep track of how much you save by using savings challenge trackers or by taking note in your financial planner. Savings trackers are a fun way to track progression and are easy ways to monitor your money.

Consider automating your savings; this can help you to save consistently without thinking about it.
- Automating your savings is the process of setting up your account to take out an amount every pay period from your checking to put into your savings.

Investing & Income Increasing Opportunities

High-yield saving accounts (HYSA) are low-risk investment accounts where you can put your money and over time, your money will gain interest.
An HYSA account is a great account to use when saving money that you don’t intend to touch soon.

The amount of interest you receive depends on the bank and it is typically paid out on a monthly basis.

For instance, Capital One has a performance savings account with an interest rate of 3.80%, which is higher than the average 0.42%.

Here is an article about understanding interest rates to see how beneficial interest is.

But wait there’s more…

See below on the “how I saved 10k in a year” section to see how my HYSA boosted my savings.

Other income-increasing opportunities to help you reach your $10K savings goal would be:

Investing in a money market like stocks or ETFs
working extra hours at work
Side hustles or gig work like tutoring, selling your crafts, and food delivery services like DoorDash.
Tax Refunds
Bonuses &
Cash gifts

When increasing your income, avoid taking on any new debts, this way you can focus your extra money on savings.

Consistency

Last but not least, remain consistent. Saving $10,000 in a year is a journey that requires consistent contributions and effort to be successful.
Give yourself grace and the space to be flexible for unexpected life events that can occur.
Flexibility within your savings journey gives you space to handle other circumstances of higher importance.

How I Saved $10k within A Year

My journey to saving $10,000 taught me a ton about my finances.

Through increasing my income and investing in a HYSA, I was able to save $10,000 in just 8 months.

Here’s what I did:

Set the intention to save $10,000
Analyzed my income to ensure I made enough to reach my savings goal in the timeframe I chose, which is within a year.

Broke down the overall 10K goal into smaller, manageable amounts.

Created a simple zero-based budget every pay period to remind me how much I am putting towards my expenses for the pay period and ensuring I had enough money set aside for my 10K savings goal.

**TIP** – I paid myself first every pay period and did a zero dollar-based budget.

Furthermore, when paying myself first, I put my set savings amount at the top and listed everything else of importance after.

With the zero-dollar budget, I ensured every dollar was assigned to an expense and that zero dollars was left over in my budget.

Any extra income I received was put towards my savings goal and added to my biweekly goal amount.

I then tracked my savings progress by creating a simple tracker to check off every time I saved my biweekly amount.

Tracking my progress helped me to keep my goal at the forefront of my mind, so I never lost sight of it.

Lastly, my “why” kept me consistent with my contributions and disciplined with my savings journey.

Earnings from High Yield Savings Account (HYSA)

My 360 performance savings account with Capital One allowed me to receive extra money that contributed to meeting my goal.

Check out that interest growth each month! Every dollar counts.

I highly recommend getting a high-yield savings account.

In short, the savings formula above helped me to reach my goal of saving $10,000 in a year.

When saving $10k in a year, breaking down your goal into small amounts, analyzing your expenses with a budget, tracking your savings, increasing your income, and remaining consistent will assist you in getting there.

This formula will help you in achieving any savings goal, whether it be to save $5,000 in a year or to save $10k in 6 months.