7 Unique Money-Saving Challenges To Waste Less And Save More

If you live in Europe, you face quite unique challenges when it comes to money. If you can become aware of them, you can use those to your advantage for saving more money than you thought was possible. That‘s why this won‘t be an article for a fun challenge like saving your spare change in a piggy bank. Even if it‘s awesome if you do that, especially when you‘re on a tight budget. But, we want to go further and move the big rocks within your budget.

We will do so by looking at the 7 money-saving challenges that will empower you to make BIG long-term savings as a mom or dad living in Europe. In this post, I‘ll focus on 4 of the 7 money-saving challenges to waste less and save more. Each refers to another budget category. In the next posts, I‘ll then share with you the last 3 of the 7 money-saving challenges that can skyrocket your savings to the next level. Also, for each challenge, I will tell you my personal experience as a mom living in Germany on how much I was able to save.

The 7 money-saving challenges are:

• Housing: Reviewing Costs & Debt Pay-Off Plan
• Food: Pantry Challenge „Shelf Cooking“
• Insurances: Reviewing Insurance Policies
• Stuff: Decluttering & Selling Your Stuff
• Travel Hacking
• A Temporary Bare Bones Budget
• The Spending Freeze

I will present you each money-saving challenge structured as follows:

• What to expect from the money-saving challenge
• How much time you will need
• How much it will suck
• How often to do it
• My lessons learned

If you tackle all money-saving challenges, I guarantee, you will max out your savings. But even if not, you will save more money than before and achieve your financial goal faster. If you rather want to find simple savings ideas, check out 49 Incredible Money Saving Challenges To Grow Wealth. That list includes ideas like saving every nickel dime that passes through your hands or the 52-week money challenge where you save money throughout one year (consisting of 52 weeks). Whatever you choose as your personal money-saving challenge, make sure to be prepared as follows.

How to set yourself up for success

We human beings get very uncomfortable with drastic changes. If you want to tackle all money-saving challenges, give yourself time to breathe in-between. Reflect on the spending habits you discovered at the end of the challenge like your buying behavior and consumer approach. Talk about them. It can lead to healthier financial habits for every family member.

Also, define a set period of time for doing that challenge. A set amount of money you want to add in money-saving to your bank account might be helpful too. This is also the best way to create a savings plan of what you can expect to save within your budget.

But, before you start a new money-saving challenge, talk about your “why” with your partner. Why do you want to achieve your savings goals? What are your overall financial goals behind them? I found that so helpful and a great way to connect with each other and to get an accountability partner along the way. It was also a huge motivation to commit especially to the money-saving challenges I had zero motivation to do like the first challenge.

Housing: Reviewing Costs & Debt Pay-Off Plan

What to expect

Housing is the biggest expense in most families’ budgets. Not only because housing costs have gone to astronomical levels like it is in Western Europe. In addition, our wages are lower than in America for example and have barely increased. That makes it hard to find affordable living space, especially in cities or the suburbs. I can tell this firsthand. That‘s where this money-saving challenge comes in. I will split it in two. One refers to housing costs themselves. I would like to start with that. The other is debt pay-off plans if you have a mortgage.

The evolution of housing

When I think about our housing situation as Europeans, compared to the US for example, I can say we live on a small foot. In the US, the average house size has increased by around 60% over the last decades to over 2,600 square feet (240 m2). At the same time, the average American family has gotten smaller to 2-3 people. That is 866-1,300 square feet (80-120 m2) per person. Funnily, that is actually the size of an average German family’s home like ours. So, one German family lives on the same space as one person in America.

That has cultural reasons. In Europe, it is mostly not good manners to show off money. It‘s just not part of our culture. Also, we were trained to live below our means. To put as much money as possible aside in a savings account. To have an emergency fund. But, even though the phenomenon of having more living space for fewer people is also true for Western Europe like Germany. We need twice as much space per person than in earlier times. But our parents or grandparents didn‘t seem like they suffered from that or had a life being less rich. And here’s where to start the challenge.

According to data, we spend around 70% of our time in the kitchen, living room, or family room – something common in America. That translates to spending only 30% of our time in the rest of our homes. Mostly we then are in our bedrooms where we just sleep. But we pay for our entire homes 100% of our time and not an insignificant amount either. So, when we think about lowering our housing costs, let‘s consider more financial efficiency. If you would only pay for what you actually use, how much would that be? How much in living space? How much in housing costs?

Options to lower housing costs

• Selling your home and relocating.
• Renting out your home and relocating.
• Renting out a part of your home (permanent or through Airbnb) and living only within the space you actually use like on the lower level.
• Garaging: In Munich where we live, people renovate their garages to enlarge their living space due to housing shortage. Some then live there and rent out their home.
• Bartering: Find someone to live in a room of your home – after some renovations – in exchange for services like garden and housework.

Find creative ways and let your ingenuity spark your ideal solution.

Does nothing above speak to you? Are you one of the few people who already apply financial efficiency to housing costs? Or do you simply feel like your housing situation is fixed for whatever reason? If so, do you have a mortgage? When answering yes, let‘s see if we can then optimize your debt pay-off plan.

Options to optimize debt pay-off plans

A debt pay-off plan often is made to the advantage of the creditor. With minimum debt payments, you pay a lot more in interest. So, you slowly come down from your debt. But at least it‘s a bit easier to cover monthly mortgage payments.

If you want to learn about the different debt pay-off strategies, check the A Third Debt Payoff Strategy that no one is talking about. If that is not possible for you for whatever reason, you could refinance debt payments through another bank. That means you completely cancel a debt contract and replace it with another credit bank. Of course, that makes sense only if interest rates would be lower. If so, you have two options. You could either reduce your monthly mortgage payments. Or you could keep the amount and pay-off your debt faster. That‘s because you can now boost your redemption ratio.

How much time you will need

If you want to review your housing costs and get creative on how to lower them, you will need a couple of weeks to make a solid decision. But, if you also need to review your debt pay-off plan that might take you 2 months or more. We needed a bit over 2 months to do both. We reviewed our debt-pay off plan as we had to communicate with different creditors. But, what took us an endless amount of hours and discussions was planning to eventually change our housing situation.

How much it will suck

From all money-saving challenges, that was one of two challenges that annoyed me quite a bit. I think it was the end of the year when my husband and I had started to have many discussions about our housing situation. This is usually the time when we take a break and evaluate how our financial situation has evolved over the year. But, it was so hard to come to the same page. But, things fell into place after a while. We had a blueprint in mind. With that we created a financial plan for the upcoming years. Our goal is to maybe rent out our house at some point in time. From this moment someone else would pay-off our debt through rent payments. We then would grow our wealth and create an additional income.

How often to do it

Challenging housing costs or your debt pay-off plan is more of a one-time thing. It may be that you can do this money-saving challenge once and then forget about it. At least, for the next decade. But of course, it depends on how often you want to consider relocating.

My lessons learned

The biggest learning was that everyone can and should check on their debt pay-off plan by splitting the debts in-between the interest and the redemption. How about you? How big is your total interest compared to your total redemption you pay? If your interest is bigger or quite the same as your redemption consider unscheduled mortgage payments.

Also, ask yourself: Do my housing costs eat up your dreams? If your housing costs make up 50-60+% of your family’s income chances are high that you can barely afford the rest of your life. That‘s not an exception anymore. Now, your debt ties you to your job. You must continue earning A LOT to pay-off the huge debt behind your home. That‘s a huge financial burden I see more and more often around me.

The biggest hurdle I recognize when it comes to such housing situations is that people in Europe do not change as easily as people in the US. Americans do a fresh start selling a home and buy another one several times during their lifetime. In Europe that happens mostly only one time. Maybe twice but certainly not more often. You can only overcome that if you reflect on such special cultural challenges you have as a European.

Food: Pantry Challenge „Shelf Cooking“

What to expect

The second largest expense in a family’s budget – no matter if it‘s a European family or not – is food. I don‘t know about you but our grocery bills have been through the roof the last few months. What a great starting point to give the pantry challenge a try. The idea is to use up what you already have at home in your pantry, freezer, and refrigerator. Now, you make meals based on what you have on hand and focus on cooking at home.

As Europeans, we tend to not store as much food as maybe an American family does. And having less food stuffed can be an advantage for this money-saving challenge as it won‘t overwhelm you as much.

Your goal with that challenge is to provide meals for your family from your home instead of from the grocery store. That is called “Shelf Cooking”. It means you plan your meals around what you already have at home. You buy only what you need to fill the holes and feed your family. The real bare minimum such as fresh milk or veggies. That’s it.

How much time you will need

The idea of the pantry challenge is to reduce your grocery spending for a set amount of time like one week or one month. Many people doing the pantry challenge choose one month as they start. It‘s the typical one-month challenge. Not only to save hundreds. But, because it takes quite some time to go through your pantry, freezer, and refrigerator. Also, you will profit most from that challenge if you stick to it until the end of the month. That is the time you need to strengthen a new food habit.

How much it will suck

I found that money-saving challenge the most fun. I bet it will be the same for you because you can experiment with recipes. Also, cleaning out your pantry or freezer is just awesome. But you need to resist the temptation to buy everything you can in advance before you start that challenge. That’s not the purpose of that challenge and will lead to fewer valuable lessons for the whole family.

How often to do it

As often as you have fun doing it. Some people like to take one week within each month and do the pantry challenge to clean out their shelves. I admire that but that‘s not the best fit for our family. Instead, I love doing that seasonally.

For example, when spring comes, I clean out our pantry in the basement. I plan my grocery shopping ONLY around what we already have at home. I use up all the potatoes and other winter food and do a lot of baking together with my kids. That‘s because we mostly buy seasonally and locally from our farmers nearby. Maybe you want to consider doing that challenge right before going on vacation. This way you not only use up everything you need before leaving your home but also save up extra money for your travel.

My lessons learned

My biggest learning was to realize that I need to write out a pantry list and regularly (!) go over that list. As I had spent quite some time in my pantry I saw quickly that we‘re about to run out of oats or oil for example. Today, I check my pantry every week by looking through the shelves and making notes of what is missing. Also, I set the rule that the person taking out the last item of something in the pantry writes a short note and puts it in the kitchen.

That challenge will also enable you to use up the very last forgotten can of meat or beans. You will then automatically rethink your buying behavior. You will question how sustainable your food lifestyle really is. That will lead to less food waste in your home and reduce the waste of your money too. Cheers to that and enjoy your next (pantry) meal!

What I loved the most about that challenge was finding new favorite family meals – kid approved. All while eating healthier and cheaper. How? Try this website. You type in the ingredients you have on hand and choose from worldwide recipes around that. Another resource for shelf-cooking is an American mom’s e-book series and website about shelf-cooking. If you have a self-sufficient garden and like eating animal products definitely check out my favorite channel From Scratch Farmstead. Set the goal to find one new delicious family meal around what you normally have in your pantry, freezer, and fridge.

Insurances: Reviewing Insurance Policies

What to expect

The third largest expense for European parents is either transportation – as it is in the US – or surprisingly: insurances. If you‘re from Western Europe, especially if you‘re from Germany, you might have heard of the saying „You‘re over-insured“. I know, for some countries like the United States that might sound crazy. But for other countries, like Germany, where we live, that is totally true. People here tend to be over-insured. That means they have more insurance coverage than what they actually need at the moment.

Being over-insured as a European has cultural reasons. People here are used to being safe. As we have a strong social security system, we have a soft landing no matter if we face unemployment, a longer illness or have kids and become stay-at-home moms for a while. The social state pays. But of course, not for every risk. So, we aim to get even more risk coverage into our family life. That results in high insurance costs. A family paying hundreds on insurance per month is not an exception – in addition to healthcare insurance costs.

What we want to do now is to find the right risk coverage your family really needs. The goal is to read each insurance policy and the coverage it provides. Yes, read! Grab your policies and read them in detail. Is this what you need and want to pay for? If not, do you want to cut it completely or just lower your coverage? Whatever you choose, you will save on your insurance costs WHILE having exactly the benefits you need for your family. Maybe you can split this insurance check between the two of you.

How much time you will need

It took us around 2 months in total until we had checked all of our insurance policies. Some of those we could cut out completely. Others were just revised and optimized to serve our family in a better way. All of that enabled us to save hundreds each month while getting better risk coverage. That‘s because we only kept what we truly needed. But, I was surprised that a couple of hours per week were actually enough to do this challenge. Initially, I was afraid of sitting there all Sunday long reading an insurance policy. But, that wasn‘t the case.

How much it will suck

I don‘t know about you but I hate paperwork and all of that organizational stuff. And I rarely use the word hate because I don‘t really like its tone. But when it comes to checking insurance policies, that is just the appropriate classification. At least for me. When I look at my husband Marc I can say that he loves that stuff. That is just crazy to me. And that‘s the point. If you‘re like me, this money-saving challenge will suck. Quite a bit. But only in the beginning. Because when you see the HUGE savings in front of your eyes that this challenge provides, I promise you will be very fine. But, first you need to overcome your impulse of procrastinating with your own insurance check. It‘s worth it. Promise.

How often to do it

I‘d like to say once and then you‘re settled. But, that‘s only half the truth. Whenever your life circumstances change, you need to do a review of your insurance needs. For example, if you get married and have kids, if you buy a house or a car or a quite expensive bike, if you move or become self-employed you should check on your insurances. Especially if you decide on early retirement you need to completely revise your insurance policies otherwise you will lose money. We‘re about to publish a long blog post about „The Only Insurances You Need For Early Retirement“. So, stay tuned.

My lessons learned

I learned to question an insurance primarily from a new financial point of view I didn‘t consider before. This is how you can do it too. Ask yourself: If I would have to pay for the highest possible damage by myself – that the insurance company would pay for otherwise – could I do that without breaking the bank? For my supplementary dental insurance, I could confidently answer „Yes“. So, I have none. But that‘s different with my liability insurance.

Another big learning was to keep cool. Not every insurance check needs hours to review. Maybe you can divide the insurance check between both of you taking care of individual preferences. My last tip is to focus on your healthcare insurance coverage. Even if you have statutory healthcare and the different companies’ benefits seem like they are the same, they are not. I can say that firsthand after switching our family’s healthcare in Germany.

Stuff: Decluttering & Selling Your Stuff

What to expect

You can expect to have a feeling of liberation. I had the impression I could no longer see the wood for the trees in my home as it was so stuffed. Everywhere was something. How about you? Do you have unused sports equipment or kitchen items somewhere? Do you still have clothes that are from your teenager or young adulthood years? Most of us have tons of things in our homes. So did we. Nearly every corner of our home was cluttered with unused stuff. The same was true for our wardrobe. Old blankets, bedding, shoes, jewelry, electronics, and even old bikes. Some stuff was of value and a few were worthwhile to sell. People paid more money than I thought.

Decluttering your home does not only liberate space. But, you may find things that are good to sell. Especially if you find unopened boxes. Don‘t be ashamed. At least, now you know that something is going a bit wrong. Decluttering your home will lower your overall expenses for the long term. You will become aware of how much you already have. Maybe even of unhealthy financial habits like one-click shopping on your phone. I talk about that in the article Impulse Buying: Its Roots & How To Overcome 3 Main Triggers.

However, the idea behind selling your stuff is to find valuable things and sell them online. Or you could do a garage sale – which our neighbors have recently done very successfully. That rule applies especially for limited editions of certain products like a Playstation or unused but valuable jewelry or kids stuff. That can add up to hundreds of Euros if not 1,000+ Euros in savings. At least, that‘s how it was for us.

How much time you will need

There is not really an end to declutter your home, especially if you also set the goal to declutter your wardrobe. But, it gets better and easier over time. And it is so worth it! There are different methods on how to implement decluttering in busy daily family life. I found it the easiest to set a time frame and declutter when the kids are not around. I focus on my declutter goal for one hour or two and then stop and go on with my day.

Here are some books that either others told me to read (I‘m not there yet) or that I can highly recommend when you want to start your own decluttering journey:

• Döstädning: The Swedish Art of Death Cleaning
• Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life
• Minimalism: Essential Essays
• The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying: The Japanese Art
• The Minimalist Home: A Room-by-Room Guide to a Decluttered, Refocused Life
• The Joy of Less: A Minimalist Guide to Declutter, Organize, and Simplify
• Declutter Challenge: A Guided Journal for Getting your Home Organized in 30 Quick Steps
• Decluttering at the Speed of Life: Winning Your Never-Ending Battle with Stuff
• Organizing for the Rest of Us: 100 Realistic Strategies to Keep Any House Under Control
• Keep the Memories, Lose the Stuff: Declutter, Downsize, and Move Forward with Your Life

How much it will suck

It is a bit overwhelming in the beginning. You might get embarrassed or even sad when looking at all of that stuff that had only little to no usage. All of that money that had been spent for no value in exchange. All of those hours you worked to earn that money you then had spent for nothing so to say. At least, that‘s how I felt. But, at least you now can do better.

What can be highly motivating is to include your kids when decluttering their stuff. Every time they sort out a thing you can sell for money, give your kids that real money. Talk about the importance of saving it. I share my surprising experience about how much my little one understands at the age of 4 in the post How I Teach My Kids To Invest For Financial Independence.

How often to do it

Constantly. Period. Simply do not stop decluttering your home. It‘s fascinating how many new items enter your home each week without you even realizing it. Especially if you have kids. So, just keep on going.

My lessons learned

I had and still have the impression I go under in stuff. Especially in clothing. For my kids and myself. That‘s because a significant part of it is almost unworn. That runs me nuts. I‘m literally drowning in my kids’ clothing. I still feel overwhelmed every time when I declutter. But at least I stopped shopping for myself for years. That might sound extreme. But if you would have seen my wardrobe you would understand. I could have dressed for an entire year without needing to wash my clothes, except for underwear. So, why in the world would I add even more to that? Chances are high that I will continue using a washing machine. That realization helped me to stop impulse purchases in the first place. I just don‘t want to add any new stuff that isn‘t planned or needed.

And that was it for 4 of the 7 money-savings challenges to waste less money and gain more savings. In the next posts, I will show you exactly how I use the remaining 3 of the 7 money-savings challenges – like the no spend challenge – to skyrocket my bank account balance fast.

When you walk away today with at least one new idea to improve your personal financial journey towards F.I.R.E. I’d love to show you some more in the next post. If you haven’t already, you can apply to become a part of the community to not miss any new release. For that you can subscribe to our Newsletter below in the green footer.

As I regularly try to cover topics requested by a large part of the community, I’d love to hear: what is the money-savings challenge you want to know more about? Let me know in the comments below!