How to turn your spare change into £670 in a year

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STRUGGLING to get into a savings habit? Then we’ve got a simple trick that will boost your bank balance by almost £670 in just 12 months.

Better yet, it’ll will hardly feel like you’re putting any money aside.

The penny challenge will help you save almost £670 over a year

Forget sticking a tenner in your piggy bank because the penny saving challenge will help you save £668 in one year, starting off with 1p a day.

The challenge isn’t actually new – it was first thought up by money-saving experts at Magic Freebies a few years ago.

But it’s important to remind ourselves that saving doesn’t have to be hard, especially during the financial blues after the Christmas break.

The typical UK household spends almost £740 extra in December, 29% more than the average of £2,500 in a month, according to the Bank of England.

In other words, it’s no wonder our wallets are feeling a little flat.

With Blue Monday officially tomorrow, January 18, we explain how to turn your spare change into a cash pot to help ease next year’s January.

How does the penny challenge work?

This challenge focuses on putting away your coppers and loose change so you’ll need a jar or box to keep the funds safe.

Start off by putting in 1p on the first day and increasing it by another penny every day. Like this:

Day 1: Put in £0.01

Day 2: Put in £0.02

Day 3: Put in £0.03

When you reach 100 days, keep doing the same thing but you’ll need to add a £1 coin each day too.

Day 100: Put in £1.00

Day 101: Put in £1.01

Day 102: Put in £1.02

That means that by day 200 you’ll be adding £2 coins as well as your pennies, and by day 300 you’ll be sticking at least £3 in the jar every day.

Now, it might not sound like much, but if you manage to keep it up every day for the next 365 days, you will have tucked away £667.95 in a year.

If you don’t have any spare change, you could of course also do the challenge digitally and transfer the pennies to a separate account each day.

If you pop the cash into a savings account which pays interest, your spare change will go even further.

We’ve rounded up a list of the best paying savings accounts on the market.

If you want to use an app instead, check out these top ones we’ve spotted that are free to use and are available on iPhone and Android devices.

We recently tried six savings challenges that saved us hundreds of pounds – here’s how you could too.

If you’re looking for more saving inspiration, one mum saved £25,000 by committing to a “no buy year” in 2019, only spending money on essential purchases.