The 10-Step Quick Guide: How Can I Save $1000 dollars in 30 Days?

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According to this article here on The Motley Fool, 69% percent of Americans have less than $1,000 dollars in savings. That’s insane to me.

Because $1,000 dollars really isn’t that much money. And you should have at least something saved.

But many people don’t even have this amount of money in their savings, so today we’re going to change that. We’re going to go over a couple of reasons why you might need to save $1,000 dollars and my 10-step guide on how to save $1,000 dollars.

There’s no magic formula. Just get to work, make money, and save up $1,000 dollars. Because you need to have some savings.

So don’t wait any longer. Start saving up that money right now. Ready…set…go!

Reasons you might need to save $1,000 dollars in 30

1. you need to get your starter emergency fund together (before you get out of debt)

If you’re looking to get out of debt, you need to first build yourself a small $1,000 dollar starter emergency fund. And even if you’re not looking to get out of debt, it’s still very important to have at least $1,000 dollars in savings. Because life always happens and you’ve gotta’ have some kind of buffer for emergencies.

For more on how to create your $1,000 dollar starter emergency fund, check out this post:

“How to Create a $1,000 Dollar Starter Emergency Fund in 1 month!“

2. you’ve got an emergency!

If you’re smack dab in the middle of an emergency, you need to get this $1,000 dollars (or more) together quickly so you don’t have to use debt. If you already have your $1,000 dollar starter emergency fund, use that. If you don’t, or you need more, start following the steps on this list.

If you’ve got an emergency, it’s time to put your game face on and get to work. Let’s do it.

The 10-step quick guide: how can I save $1,000 in 30 days?

Step 1 – Set a goal

The first thing you need to do on your 30 day journey to saving $1,000 dollars is to set some clear, written goals. Why? Because setting financial goals for anything in your finances is really important. So you need to figure how much you actually need in the next 30 days (let’s just say it’s roughly $1,000 dollars) and how much you can save per week. If you want to hit that goal in 30 days, or about 4 weeks, you’ll need to save $250 dollars per week. I’d say that’s pretty manageable.

Next, stop everything and get started! You’re going to do anything and everything you can to reach your goal. The beautiful thing about goals is that even if you don’t hit your goal or hit it in time, you’ll be that much closer and have made a decent amount of progress along the way. So even if it takes you 35 days instead of 30 to reach your goal, you’ve still hit that goal and shouldn’t be discouraged. Set your goals NOW.

Step 2 – Pick a place to save it

Step 2 on this list is to pick a place where you’re going to save this $1,000 dollars. This should be quick. Don’t mess around. You need to find a good place to save it. I would recommend putting it into a savings account online and not keeping it as cash. Cash is fine but you might be more tempted to get it and spend it. That and a savings account is a little bit harder to get to, so you might not be willing to go through the trouble to get that money and spend it. Alright, pick where you’re going to save it. Got it? Cool. Steps 1 and 2 are complete.

Step 3 – Create a budget

After you set your goal and pick where you’re going to save this money, it’s time to start putting in the work. It’s time to make your budget.

If you don’t have a budget in your finances, you aren’t going to be able to able to achieve your financial goals AND you’re going to waste a lot of money. The budget helps you control your money so that it doesn’t control you.

In order to achieve your goal of $1,000 dollars in 30 days, you need to write down all of your expenses and put it into your budget. You also need to know what your income is so that you can put that into your budget. Hopefully, after putting your income in there, and subtracting your expenses, you’ll have some left over money. Just budgeting by itself can help you identify that leftover money. Let’s say for the sake of today’s post, with your income and expenses, you have about $250 extra dollars for the month.

You also want to make sure you’re doing a zero-based budget. That’s where you take ALL income and ALL expenses and zero everything out. So if you do have that extra $250, assign it to your goal of $1,000 dollars for the month. Any extra money you make will go into your budget and immediately go towards your $1,000 dollar goal.

For more on why I love the zero-based budget, check out this post: “7 Ways a Zero-Based Budget is the Best Budget for Your Money”

For ways to give yourself a “raise” in your budget, check out this post: “37 Ways to Give Yourself a Raise in Your Budget (#27 is Crazy!)”

Step 4 – Cut expenses

Now that you’ve got your budget under control and a little bit of money left over, you need to start cutting expenses as much as possible. In order to meet that $1,000 dollar goal in 30 days, you need to cut out the unnecessary expenses to have more left over at the end of the month.

Most people can cut out $100-200 dollars of unnecessary expenses. If you can cut out $100 dollars in the first month of doing your budget, that’s fantastic. This will bring your money saved for the month up from $250 to $350 dollars total.

But keep trying to cut more expenses out. It’s important to hit that $1,000 dollar goal in 30 days or less. If you’d like to learn more ways to cut expenses, check out this epic post: “101 Ways of Creatively Cutting Expenses to Save a Ton of Money”

Step 5 – Overtime, part time job, or a side hustle

Next up is making some extra money to get closer toward your goal of $1,000 dollars this month. Because there’s only so much you can do to cut back on your expenses. You should also look to increase your income to add extra money in to whatever financial goal you’re going for.

So, with that being said, there are a couple of ways that you can work more to add extra money in toward your goal.

Overtime: if you can swing it, ask your job if you can add in more overtime hours on top of your normal schedule. Most jobs like mine will offer 5-10 hours a month and the pay is excellent – time and a half pay (1.5X pay) or double time pay (2X pay). That can help you add in a few hundred dollars per month.

Part-time job: getting a second job or just anything else part-time can help you add in as much money as you can work. Add a 10-15 hour a week part-time job in and you can easily make an extra $500-1000 dollars per month.

Side hustle: go out and cut grass, clean houses, walk dogs, power wash, or do whatever you can to make extra money in the next 30 days.

Let’s say by working a little extra at your job and by cutting grass, you’ve added in $300 bucks extra to your total. Working extra has brought your total to $650 dollars. Great job!

Step 6 – Sell EVERYTHING

Next up, I want you to go through your house and find anything and everything that you can sell. I like to jokingly say “everything that’s not bolted to the floor. Your spouse, kids, and pets will start to worry that they’re next.” But seriously, we’ve ALL got useless junk or things we don’t need or want laying around the house. Find everything you can and put it together. Price it appropriately and start selling it online.

When selling online, you can use places like EBay or Mercari for most of your stuff. You can also sell the bigger stuff on Facebook Marketplace and have people come pick it up from your house. For 3 weeks, sell as much as possible online.

The last weekend, I want you to have a yard sale and sell as much as possible. Mark down stuff and just get it sold. Get as close as you can. All of your sales have added $200 dollars into your total.You’re now up to $850 dollars. So close! Now you just have to do the work to find the rest of the money.

Step 7 – The No-spend challenge

Along with everything else, you’re going to do a no-spend challenge. This will help you get REALLY close to your $1,000 dollar goal in only 30 days. The no-spend challenge is great for any month, not just months like this one.

If you’ve never heard of the no-spend challenge, you’re going to HATE it and LOVE it. That’s how I feel about it.

The no-spend challenge is pretty simple: no spending on anything unnecessary that doesn’t include bills or groceries to eat. Pay for the required expenses but you cut out EVERYTHING else that isn’t a complete necessity. Pretty simple, right?

You’re going to do this for an entire month and you’re also going to do something else: keep a log of every time you don’t spend money when you were originally going to spend. For example, let’s say I really wanted to eat out. I’ve got Chik Fil A on my mind and that meal now is over $12 dollars. Instead of eating out, I make something at home.

The first entry in my “no-spend challenge log” is going to be $12 saved at Chik Fil A. Do that every time you don’t buy something. Every time you say “NO!” to something, log it. Add up all of your expenses at the end of the month and pay yourself with that money. You’re “paying yourself for your discipline.”

Everything you’ve totaled up from the no spend challenge has equaled $100 extra dollars. You’re now up to $950 dollars and SO CLOSE! Keep going!!

If you’d like to learn more about the no spend challenge, check out this post here on the savvy sparrow.com.

Step 8 – Change your food habits

So the no-spend challenge has probably already helped you stop eating out. During this crazy month, I would cut fast food out completely. This might seem a little foreign to you, but I promise you that you will survive. I lived off of very little fast food during both of my debt free journeys and I’m still here doing better than ever.

As for your other eating habits, you need to make sure that you’re shopping for healthy options at the grocery store and you’re not wasting too much money on pre-packaged snacks and other unhealthy food. That stuff normally costs more money. Use coupons, find deals, and make sure you’re shopping on days when stores have the most deals (yes, that’s real).

At home, make sure to always cook your food and have leftovers so that you can pack your lunch. You can also meal prep your food and plan out your dinners. All of that planning can really help you not spend anything eating out. But you still have manage the grocery budget and save here.

After all of that, you’ve managed to squeeze an extra $50 dollars out of your grocery budget that didn’t get spent and there’s your $1,000 dollars total!

For more ways to reduce your grocery budget, check out this post here: “47 Tips and Tricks for Saving Money at the Grocery Store.”

Step 9 – Find the extra money in your budget

Again, the no-spend challenge should help you with this. You’re not spending on pointless stuff, things you don’t need, or anything that’s not a planned purchase in the budget. At this point, you need to change up your habits to help you continue being able to save money and crush your financial goals. Those habits include:

Living below your means
Not trying to keep up with the Joneses
Continuing to borrow money
Not getting rid of your debt
Not continuing to budget
Not having a 3-6 month emergency fund
Not investing money
Not having a financial plan and…
Not thinking about your retirement.

If some or all of those are you, you’re making some huge financial mistakes. If you’d like to learn more about how to fix these, check out this post: “37 Common Money Mistakes That We’ve All Made (and How to Fix Them)”

Step 10 – Don’t stop at $1,000 dollars!

Step 10 is to feel the reward of achieving your first money goal, saving up $1,000 dollars in 30 days! Congratulations, you did it!

But I don’t want you to stop here! I want you start creating some NEW financial goals for the future. Next up should either be working on getting all of your debt paid off or building up your 3-6 month fully funded emergency fund. Whatever financial goal you choose, whatever it is, just go after it! You can do it!

Why you should save $1,000 dollars

Whether you’re saving up for your starter emergency fund, trying to pay for an emergency, or just trying to save up for something, $1,000 dollars can make a HUGE difference. If you’re working toward paying off debt, I highly encourage you to get this $1,000 dollars together as fast as possible so that you can have at least a small emergency fund ready. But if you need $1,000 dollars for something else, get it together as fast as possible. It’s not that hard to save $1,000 bucks. So don’t make it harder than it needs to be. Follow the plan I’ve highlighted and you’ll crush this $1,000 dollars in 30 days or less.