Saving money is challenging for a lot of people including myself and the people that I personally know. Maybe, this is the reason why a lot of people are coming up with a variety of ideas on how to save money.
One of those ideas went viral in the Philippines a few years back and it was even featured in the local news.
This money-saving idea is called The Invisible 50 Peso (PHP50) Challenge. To my readers outside the Philippines, Php or Philippine Peso is the name of our local currency. P50 is almost equivalent to 1 USD (as of the time of writing 1 USD is equal to P48.0127 via XE.com).
There has been a lot of other saving money or Ipon challenges (Ipon means To Save) in the past few years and I have never tried any of those (yet). However, when I read about this, I figured, why not!
What is ‘The Invisible 50 Peso Challenge’ or The Invisible P50 IPON Challenge?
The Invisible 50 Peso Challenge or The Invisible P50 Ipon Challenge mechanics is simple, you will save and not spend every P50 bill that you will receive.
Since it’s an Ipon challenge (saving-money challenge), I’m guessing that at the end of a specific timeframe, you will then deposit all the P50 bills that you have saved to your savings account. But of course, it’s up to you what you want to do with your money at the end of this challenge.
What I Love About this Idea
If I’m being honest to myself, I never paid any attention to any money-saving challenges in the past because saving money was not a big priority for me in the past few years.
I know now that is a huge mistake – actually, it’s my biggest mistake in my life. But ever since I discovered the personal finance world, I’m so glad that people are creating exciting and fun ways to save money.
Ideas like this may not make you a millionaire right away but it will definitely help all of us build the habit of saving money. And that habit will definitely be one of our building blocks in building our first wealth in the years to come.
What Makes this Idea Challenging
One of the challenges of this idea is that you may not get a lot of P50 bill. Personally, now that I’m writing this, I don’t think that I get that many P50 bills. I usually get a ton of P20, some P100 bills, or coins in my day to day transactions.
Another thing that I’m asking myself is, what if the only remaining money in my wallet is a single P50 bill. Should I spend it since it’s the only thing I have? Or should I save it? I will find out after this year ends as I’m going to try this Ipon challenge myself.
If ever you find yourself in the same predicament, I suggest that you don’t compromise your health and safety just to be able to complete this challenge. If ever you’re left with a P50 bill and you need to buy food or pay for your transportation back home, then, by all means, buy your food or pay for your transport back home.
I guess, like most Ipon challenges, this will all boil down to budgeting, discipline, and having a stash of short-term emergency money in your wallet.
Final Thoughts
This is actually almost similar to what I used to do in the past. When I was still working, I used to keep two piggy banks, one for P5 coins and one for P10 coins. Every time I went home from work, I empty my pockets and whatever coins left (only P5 and P10 coins), I put them in my piggy banks. When I was doing this, I was not aiming for anything though. I just saved those coins and I actually used them to pay for some weekly stuff such as drinking water etc.
So, this is technically my first Ipon challenge and let’s see what will happen. I will update this post in January 2022.
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Is there a similar Ipon challenge or money-saving challenge in your country? Have you tried any of these money-saving challenges? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below. Thanks!
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