Saving money is not the easiest thing to commit to but the viral 100 envelope challenge can help you save R5000 over a few months.
People on social media have been sharing their success stories after taking part in the saving hack dubbed the ’100 envelope challenge’.
Like most saving hacks, this one seems easy. You start with 100 envelopes and label them with the numbers one through 100. Then keep the envelopes in some sort of container (like a shoebox).
Depending on your financial situation, for the next 100 days, you randomly pull a single envelope out of the box and put the amount of cash equal to the number on the outside of the envelope. So if you pick up the number 50 then you will place R50 in the envelope.
If you are unable to stash money aside daily, you can space out your deposits to maybe two or three times a week, but that will stretch out the time it takes you to get to your saving goal.
If you stick with the challenge for 100 days, you will have R5,050 in the envelopes by the end of it.
If you are in a position to save more, you can double it by getting 200 envelopes. You will do the same by labelling both sets of envelopes from one to 100, and then pull out two envelopes per day. By the end of the 100 days, you will end up with R10,100.
The hack sounds like a simple saving exercise but people that do not like carrying cash might find it a bit difficult to take part in it. While others might be overwhelmed by having to put money away every single day for 100 days.
@imcalledadri Saving money brings me happiness😌 #100envelopechallenge #savingmoney #money ♬ You Are My High – DJ Snake
However, if you are able to get past those problems, you will be able to save R5050, in somewhat a fun way.
According to Indy100, the hack is based on a mathematical formula developed by German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss back in the 18th-19th Century.
As a child, he realised that if you group the numbers from one to 100 in pairs, you can add them together to reach 101. So 1 + 100 =101, 2 + 99 = 101, 3+ 98= 101 and so on.
In this case, there are 50 pairs of numbers, so the total is 50 x 101, or 5,050, according to the publication.
Social media users all over the world have given the hack a try, and it sure does look fun when they open all the envelopes and count their cash.
