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Swap Coordinator:	leilx (contact)
Swap categories:	Challenges Email
Number of people in swap:	19
Location:	International
Type:	Type 1: Electronic
Last day to signup/drop:	January 4, 2013
Date items must be sent by:	December 31, 2013
Number of swap partners:	3
Description:
Do you have something big you want to save up for? This is the swap for you! I want to go to India in 2014, and I want to have plenty of money to be there for at least a month. What is your dream? Maybe you just want a bigger safety cushion, or you want to buy a piece of furniture...that's up to you! So, here's what we are going to do. 1) In January, send an email to your partners telling them what you are saving up for in loving detail, and, for fun, how you are going to do it (under the loose board in the bedroom, piggy bank, automatic withdrawal from the bank account...). 2) Beginning January, save an amount equal to the number of the week. There are 52 weeks in a year. So, for the first week we will save $1 (dollar coins are great for this!). For the twentieth week, $20 added to the cash cow. For the forty-second week, we will put $42 dollars in the stash...and well, you can do the math. It comes out to $1378 for the year, or $106 a month, if that math is easier for you. update: for overseas people, you can choose to do one of the following: save an equivalent amount in your local currency OR follow the concept of the swap and save 1 pound, rupiah, birr, dinar (insert your personal currency)...for the first week, 2 for the second, etc. You decide what works better for you. 3) Send an email by May 31 (I will send out a reminder) to your partners letting them know how it is going. Just a little update. 4) At the end of the year, send an email to your partners and let them know how you did. How much did you save? Will you still do whatever it is you hoped to do originally, or has your dream changed? 5) I would suggest that a 5 rating means the swapper sent you 3 emails during the year (January, end of May, December) and saved money, ideally $1378 or more. However, we all have personal financial situations which may prevent that from happening. I think if the swapper makes a good faith effort to save, even if they don't get all the way to the amount, they should get a 5. The real point of the swap is to encourage people to save. If enough people join and are interested, I will start a blog or group for people to chat on. Anyone serious may participate; must have a well-filled profile, no 1s in the last 6 months, or 3s in the last 2 months. Email me if you need an exception. I borrowed this swap from thehurriedmommy, who did it in 2012 but has not logged into Swap-Bot since last January.

Discussion

Noisy 12/11/2012 #

boah! cool idea! I am in!

Alcomog 12/11/2012 #

Maybe you should set up a blog for it so we can update how we are getting on each week? That way we can all encourage each other when it the amounts get higher and it gets more difficult to keep it going.

leilx 12/12/2012 #

Maybe I can set up a group. I trend to be bad at maintaining such things

Alcomog 12/12/2012 #

Well, I'm happy to help where needed. Maybe it could be called something like Sunday Savers to encourage folk to drop by on a weekly basis. It's what i do on another blog we have on a Wednesday and it really does help to have one day specified, although they seem to come around a lot quicker than usual! I'd be happy to set up a blog for the swap if you want, but i guess you would like to see how many people sign up before you make a plan? x

Alcomog 12/12/2012 #

Also, another thought...Are you basing the currency used around the Dollar? I've signed up knowing that i will struggle to complete this challenge but i want to try and it occurs to me that while you would save $1378 dollars, here in the UK, the equivalent is Â£853, which is a whole bunch more easier to save than Â£1378!

pennywhistler 12/14/2012 #

Alcomog - I was thinking UK people could save 50p or 60p instead of a $1. It's not quite the equivilant, but I think my maths will struggle if I have to save 62p instead of a dollar!

I am interested in joining, but it would be great if there was somewhere online we could chat. I'm not on Facebook though.

Lamont1989 12/18/2012 #

When this swap starts I was thinking of doing a weekly or month email update to my partners, otherwise I'm going to forget later on.

leilx 12/20/2012 #

I think if you are from overseas, you can do it in one of two ways: save an equivalent amount in your local currency, or, follow the spirit of the idea and save Â£1 for the first week, etc. Since I didn't specify, you can choose for yourself.

I can set up a yahoo group or google group if people want that. The swap for last year did not actually use the group set up for it.

couchart 12/31/2012 #

@Leilx I know we won't rate our partners until the end of 2013, but I'm not sure what to do about marking that I've sent. Should we mark that we have "sent" after the first e-mail or the last one? Thanks!

smmarrty 01/ 5/2013 #

Hi everyone - With @leilx s permission, I have started a group called "2013 Savings Group" for the folks in this swap and the one I'm hosting to meet and discuss saving and ways to do that and maybe hold some monthly challenges. Look for it in the Groups section and I'm happy to let anyone be an officer who wants to rally the savers and keep us focused.

leilx 01/ 6/2013 #

@couchart you mark it after the last email is sent at the end of 2013.

For everyone else, I will be sending out an invite to join the group.

ElizabethObviously 01/10/2013 #

I actually started doing this after I saw a post on FB how much you could save! I am doing the add $1 thing pus any other amount I randomly add. So I will end up with more.

zurdoswifey 01/16/2013 #

This swap started a huge change in my house... I put my 1st 4 weeks in a gallon size jar so that was $10 it looked lonely so I added some random amounts... still looked a lil pathetic so I decided since I sell stuff locally at like an online garage sale type thing that everything I sell would go into the jar...I coupon too so another tweak to this swap I made was to put 10% of my before coupon cost into the jar...and finally all the change I have at the end of the day goes into its own coin counting cup and when its full I am going to coinstar and that will go into the jar... and my coin cup is filling up fast already to $32 in there.... Day 15 and my gallon "savings" jar is up to $367.00 woot woot

bettflow09 03/16/2013 #

Oh my gosh....I would have LOVED to get in on this!!! But, I am going to start saving right now and get it caught up from week 1 and then follow along with ya'll. Just because I'm not in the swap isn't going to stop me from giving this a try:))) Great strategy for saving money!!!

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