The submissions are in! Although more entries are expected as we go through the rest of this month, and the rest of this year, today we take a look at the submissions made to date, place the challenge participants into similar “groups” and see what we can learn from the goals people have set!
The Moneystepper 2015 Savings Challenge has begun. So far, we have had 36 entries to the challenge from people all over the world. One thing has been VERY clear since I’ve started the challenge. These are 36 motivated people who are very committed to achieving their ambitious goals and striving towards a better financial future! So, here we go…
The Participants & Their Groups
As we outlined in our introduction post, all participants have been placed into groups based on the following three characteristics, in descending order of weighting (i.e. net worth first, then their savings rate, then their net worth increase):
- Current Net Worth Band
- Savings Rate % Goal
- Net Worth % Increase Goal
This leads us to the following groups:
| GROUP A | |||
| Name | Website | Net Worth Goal | Savings Rate Goal |
| Chonce | My Debt Epiphany | 40 | 40 |
| Henny | Financial Freedom 30ish | 20 | 50 |
| Heather Anderson | 5000 | 1 |
| GROUP B | |||
| Name | Website | Net Worth Goal | Savings Rate Goal |
| C@thesingledollar | The Single Dollar | 150 | 50 |
| Vanessa | 300 | 50 |
| GROUP C | |||
| Name | Website | Net Worth Goal | Savings Rate Goal |
| James M | 25 | 10 | |
| Ryan | Debt Free Hustle | 100 | 10 |
| Femi | 10 | 0 |
| GROUP D | |||
| Name | Website | Net Worth Goal | Savings Rate Goal |
| Nigel W | 8 | 33.5 | |
| Jeany B | 8 | 35 | |
| Dan T | 6 | 10 | |
| Michael Smith | 5 | 60 |
| GROUP E | |||
| Name | Website | Net Worth Goal | Savings Rate Goal |
| Cath Dyson | 10 | 56 | |
| Denise | 5 | 50 | |
| Shane McGee | 12 | 40 | |
| Dan Clift | 6.68 | 44 | |
| Kylie | 10 | 60 |
| GROUP FREEDOM | |||
| Name | Website | Net Worth Goal | Savings Rate Goal |
| Vawt | Early Retirement Ahead | 30 | 65 |
| Mr. Captain Cash | Mr. Captain Cash | 35 | 80 |
| Mrs. Maroon | Mixing Maroons | 25 | 55 |
| Tim Wharteley | 10 | 92 |
| GROUP G | |||
| Name | Website | Net Worth Goal | Savings Rate Goal |
| Amanda | 75 | 60 | |
| Ginger | 50 | 40 |
| GROUP H | |||
| Name | Website | Net Worth Goal | Savings Rate Goal |
| Richard | Extreme Compounding | 10 | 10 |
| Pete Matthew | Meaningful Money | 15 | 15 |
| Matt Sommer | Humble Broker | 10 | 10 |
| Elle Martinez | Couple Money | 25 | 15 |
| GROUP I | |||
| Name | Website | Net Worth Goal | Savings Rate Goal |
| Tom Bracht | 20 | 37 | |
| Graham Clark | Moneystepper | 25 | 30 |
| Thomas | – | 33 |
| GROUP J | |||
| Name | Website | Net Worth Goal | Savings Rate Goal |
| Anna Jackson | 5 | 89 | |
| Lynx | Location FI | 35 | 60 |
| Emily | Simple Cheap Mom | 10 | 50 |
| GROUP K | |||
| Name | Website | Net Worth Goal | Savings Rate Goal |
| Mariane | 30 | 40 | |
| Connie | 35 | 40 | |
| Weenie | Quietly Saving | 20 | 50 |
| Nicola | 15 | 48 |
| GROUP L | |||
| Name | Website | Net Worth Goal | Savings Rate Goal |
| Philippa Malia | 15 | 40 | |
| Chris Smith | 20 | 40 | |
| Mr Zombie | Finance Zombie | 40 | 55 |
| Anjali | 40 | 18 |
| GROUP M | |||
| Name | Website | Net Worth Goal | Savings Rate Goal |
| Joseph Hogue | 7 | 15 | |
| Greg | 0 | 16 | |
| Jeanie | 15 | 20 |
These initial groups have been designed to be segregated so that other people in your group are in a fairly similar financial situation to yourself. Feel free to get in touch with one another (in and out of your groups) if you wish.
What Do These Groups Tell Us?
I’ve found these submissions hugely inspirational and they’ve reminded me of the importance of focusing on these goals. We see statistics every day around people living paycheck to paycheck and struggling financially, but I think that this challenge goes to show that if you concentrate and focus on your finances and achieving your long-term financial goals, then progress is much more manageable.
What makes me say this?
Well, the following facts can be taken from the people who have submitted their goals so far:
- The mean, median and modal wealth group is between £50k and £100k net worth. For me, this indicates that there is a clear link between people who focus on improving their net worth (by entering this challenge you clearly are) and their net worth!
- Whilst this is the most popular band, the next two most common are £100k-£200k and £200k-£500k, which again cements this point.
- The average saving rate goal is an absolute whopping 40%!! The industry standard is a suggestion that people should pay themselves 10% first to put towards long-term savings. People in the challenge are clearly aiming much higher than this which is extremely impressive.
- The average net worth increase % goal (excluding any anomolies due to people being close to £0 net worth) is over 20%. If someone with a £50k net worth was able to increase their net worth by 20% for 20 consecutive years, then they would have £1.6m net worth.
Any participants – well done!!
So, well done everyone! You guys are awesome.
I hope you have made a strong start to the year so far. The FTSE 100 is about flat YTD, and my expenditure/savings rate has been fairly standard and hence I’m making a reasonable start to my own personal goals. However, I won’t go into too much details until January results are submitted in early February and we’ve released the results and the related podcast.
Speaking of podcasts, all reviews/subscriptions will help a lot, and if you want to appear on next week’s show to discuss your goals (like Robbie and Ryan did last week), it’d be great to hear from you.
So, what do people think about the submissions? Anyone got any questions?
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I was expecting bigger groups, I think I’m going to make a couple close friends this year!
Me too Emily. I’ve done everything I could to get more people involved, but with the current number of participants, I didn’t want to spread the groups too thin and have people getting demotivated because they are comparing themselves to people in a different situation. What do you guys think? Should we bunch the groups together a bit or leave them as they are…?
To be honest, I was wondering where you were going with the group thing.
I don’t know about anyone else but I’m not going to be comparing myself to anyone else – even those people in my group, who are very likely to be in very different situations and different stages of their lives/financial lives.
What I will do is just look at how everyone else is doing as that will be encouraging to see everyone’s figures grow.
So I’d probably say bunch all the groups together or have fewer groups I guess!
This will be fun to watch! I love how aggressive everyone is….the power of telling yourself you CAN is amazing, isn’t it?
Looks like people are well and truly replacing that “A”chieveable with “A”mbitious as we discussed on the Stacking Benjamin’s podcast Joe. I’m pretty sure we all as a group are going to have a good 2015 financially as a result…
Great stuff! However, my website link is missing from the group details –
http://www.quietlysaving.blogspot.co.uk
Good luck to all!
You are absolutely right Weenie!! Apologies for the oversight, or “schoolgirl error” as you might say…! 🙂
Good luck to you all, I was thinking about joining but have been way to busy to get my act together this year to figure out the specifics.
Accountability and support are great motivators.
Its still not too late Zee! You’ve got another week or so until the end of the month, so we would gratefully welcome your submission!!
Alright, this should be fun. James M, lets do this. 100% change in my net worth I think is really doable in 2015. I will get $30,000 in debt paid off this year!!!!!!!!
Looking forward to getting started. I have been obsessing over my spending all month to avoid getting off to a bad start.
Graham I think you did a great job with the groupings for what you had to work with. Can you add my website http://www.mrcaptaincash.com to the website column.
Good luck everyone, especially the participants within my grouping. It will be interesting to see how it plays out as we are only a couple days away from the first months results.
Mr. Captain Cash
As Mr. Captain Cash has apparently laid down the gauntlet for the competition, I need to start paying closer attention!
Graham, I have signed up for your weekly newsletter (or at least it tells me I’ve already done it), but am not getting anything. Also, is there any way to get daily updates of your new posts… somehow I can’t find a way to do that – I hate when technology outsmarts me!
Hey! Can’t wait to meet everyone! Can you add my website to my column? It’s vanessasmoney.com
Group F has been renamed Group Freedom per Mrs Maroon. It has been seconded by Mr Captain Cash and passed unanimously by the members fo the group. Thanks!
This is absolutely amazing. Group Freedom it is!!
Anyone else want to rename their groups? Group Ambition? Group Building Wealth? Group Change? Hahahaa…