It's week 26! It doesn't seem real that I'm already six months into my $200 savings challenge, but here we are. What started as a motivational tool to help me clean up my spending habits and give my savings a bit of a boost, has turned into something I can genuinely say has had a far bigger impact on me then I ever anticipated. I've definitely gained a greater appreciation for what it means to have financial control and while not perfect, I've made some lasting changes to my spending habits. This was not something I expected to come out of this challenge, but I'm glad for it and I know this is something that'll continue paying dividends for me well into the future.

To mark the six month milestone, I thought I'd run the figures to see how much I've actually saved to date. I did this not too long ago in week 16 and was pleasantly surprised to see I had managed to save a total of $3899.31. That averaged out to $243.7 a week which is well above the $200 goal. I'm anticipating the weekly average for the last 10 weeks to be down a bit given the lockdown situation at the moment but I know I've managed to cut back on my spending in this time and it's hard to be disappointed with that given it's the one thing I have control over.

Before we get to the numbers for the last six months, let's quickly go over how week 26 went. For anyone new to this series, the name of the game is to try and save an extra $200 a week either by earning more or spending less. Ok, let's get into it.

As usual, we'll start with the extra earnings side of things. Like last week, I was on call again this week for work meaning I was expected to stay stone cold sober 24/7 and ready to work at a moments notice. Not an issue as I'm not a big drinker and it's not as if I had anything better to do, what with being in lockdown and all. This netted me the tidy sum of $575.

Speaking of better things to do, my wife and I had tickets to Hamilton which we were really looking forward to. This would have been only the second night out we would have had together since our daughter was born and I've heard nothing but good things about Hamilton. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled due to the lockdown and with the production winding up in Sydney soon and moving to Melbourne, there's no guarantee we'll be able to rebook😢 .

Ok, the savings side of things was pretty much the same as last week. $100 saved on not eating out (lunches and dinners), $50 saved as usual on rent and $45 and $17 saved on train fares and gym membership fees respectively due to the lockdown shutting everything down. In the only departure from last week, I finally got my $25 Hello Fresh voucher to work. Frustratingly, this required navigating a series of email links to activate and even then I wasn't confident it worked until I got the bill. I don't know why they made this so difficult when most of their other discounts are a breeze to use, but I got there in the end.

Extra Earnings: $575

Reduced Spending: $237

Total Savings: $812

Result: $612 over the target

$612 over the target - what an awesome result to cap six months of doing the challenge! What's even better, we would have hit the target through reduced spending alone. But, what does this result mean for our progress in the challenge to date? Let's find out with some nice infographics.

Savings over the last 10 weeks: $3965.5

Average weekly savings over the last 10 weeks: $396.55

Total savings over six months: $7864.81

Average weekly savings over six months: $302.5

I'm honestly surprised by this result. I expected the lockdown to have really put a dampener on things and for the numbers to be down across the board. But it seems the opposite has happened. As you can see, there's been three or four really big weeks in the last 10 weeks that have really turbo charged my savings. These big weeks have allowed me to save as much in the last 10 weeks as I did in the first 16 and seen my weekly savings average over the course of the challenge hit a tad over $300. I'm incredibly pleased with these results, though I'm trying to be careful and not get too ahead of myself because I know the big weeks are outliers and I can't bank on them being there over the next six months. What I can bank on, is remaining disciplined and exercising control over my spending which will provide me with a consistent rate of savings even if it's not reaching the $200 every week.

Well that's it for another week. I hope you've been enjoying reading about my efforts to save. It's certainly been rewarding for me to write about it as it's kept me accountable and motivated to stick with the challenge.

Until next time.

-Trevvie

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