What’s It about?

Since last year, my partner and I do this little exercise called More Money Challenge introduced by YNAB, a SaaS budgeting app that we’ve been using ever since I started working, and even earlier for my partner.

More Money Challenge is promoted as a way for participants to save $1000 within 30-days (usually in January) by following three rules; 1. Track your spending every day; 2. Only buy essentials; and 3. No dining out! Simple, eh?

How it went in 2024

Back in late 2023, I was about three to four months away from paying off my student loan debt. When I came across this challenge, the thought of putting some extra money towards paying off my debt and potentially paying it off way sooner than planned seemed like a really exciting idea, I was sold. And how well did I do?

From the Spending Breakdown chart above (taken from my YNAB app), almost half of my spending in January 2024 was paid towards my student loan. Removing my auto loan payments and investments, I spent a grant total of $1,468.43. The biggest spend was in a category called “Hardware Renewal” which went towards purchasing a new smartphone. I considered this an essential spend for January as I needed to replace my phone and the purchase was already budgeted for.

Riding on the success and high from January, I paid off the remaining balance on my student loan, which accounted for 54% of my spending in February. Again, if we took out loans and investments, my spending in Feb 2024 was $2,007.53. It’s about 35% more than what I spent in January, but if you compared the categories between the two months, I spent on more regular things like dining out and other personal purchases.

Continuing the momentum in 2025

Seeing how much I was able to save, and the direct result of which helped meet my goal of paying off my student loans three months ahead of schedule, there was no doubt that I was gonna do the Challenge again this year.

However for this year, the situation I find myself is a little different. I was entering the new year with me basically funemployed. My contract to my then-current job was slated to end on Jan 12th, and I had no new job lined up. 🥲 So in a sense, the Challenge was sort of more important than the year before to really focus on cutting out non-essential spending and shore up as much emergency funds as possible.

But how well did I fare? Let’s take a look.

If we did a direct comparison between the two months, I spent less overall. However, one could also say I spent more cause I wasn’t paying off any loans. The biggest difference was that my investments were much higher in comparison, and I also had some unplanned personal spending which I justified as essential for the situation I was in. 😜

The biggest spending outside of loans and investments were the categories “Quality of Life Goals” and “True Expenses”. In the “Quality of Life Goals”, I spent on a Bluray player for personal enjoyment purposes. 😂 This purchase was already budgeted for months ago. I also spent on a English Proficiency test which is needed for our Permanent Residence application in Canada. This was also already budgeted for. The next purchase was not budgeted for, and it was for an annual Coursera Plus subscription which was on sale at 50% off. I have used Coursera before and completed several specialisations on the platform. Since I was in-between jobs, I had planned to use my funemployed time to dive into the courses that I was interested in taking and just up-skill professionally. So it was a justified value purchase. 😀 My last unplanned purchase in the “True Expenses” category was the purchase of a web domain and web hosting services to… (you guessed it!) build this website. If I didn’t spend that money, I wouldn’t have built this website, and I wouldn’t even be blogging about this. Again, justified value purchase towards personal development.

Thoughts from this year

I know it can seem a bit iffy-niffy especially with the unplanned purchases. However, I thought about them long and hard before I made my decision as I really take the Challenge very seriously. I do focus on long-term value that I’d get from the purchases and also ensured I was making good on my purchases and not use them. (Read my buying mantra for this year)

All in all, I think it was a successful one this year as I was able to put a good amount of money towards investing. I had initially planned to not invest anything in January to shore up more cash as my emergency fund. With the job market so bleak, I had to increase my emergency funds from three months to six, so from a $0 to a $1666 investing in my future is a total win for me.

Then… sometime mid-way through the month, something amazing happened! I was offered a full-time role starting in February so I am somewhat able to resume my regular budgeting schedule! 😁 My partner and I are actively trying to reduce our monthly expenses and with my new job, we are going to look for a cheaper place to rent to potentially save us at least $6000 annually in rent.

I’m super duper grateful on all fronts. I am excited for my new role and I also can’t wait to see how this year pans out for me in terms of working towards my financial goals for 2025!