Here’s how you can save £600 for next Christmas with Martin Lewis’ ‘1p challenge’

Christmas has its quirks, but it usually comes at a mental and financial cost – especially during the build-up to the big day.

Well now, thanks to Money Saving Expert founder Martin Lewis, you no longer have to fret – or panic buy.

All it takes is setting aside loose change every day throughout the year – and voila – by the end of the 12 months, you will have more than £600.

On ITV’s latest episode of Martin Lewis Money Show, he said: “There’s a big savings community out there who do this. It’s called the 1p Challenge.”

The premise of the ‘1p Challenge’ is to set aside pennies each day. You essentially correlate the number of pennies to the number of days passed.

“Basically, you save a penny on the first day of the year in a jar or piggy bank, 2p on the second, 3p on the third , and keep going throughout the year,” Martin explained.

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“By the last day of December, you’re saving £3.65, so that would give you £667. 95 in total,” he added.

The simple yet genius saving strategy only works if you build the habit of saving small each day. To stay on track, you can either print out a good old-fashioned template to document your progress or turn to apps such as Monzo that can help you along the way.

Some savvy savers like to count their way backwards, starting the first day by saving £3.65 and working down to 1p for the last day of the year.

Ambitious savers can also save through a similar practice but weekly. All you need to do is put £1 in the pot to mark the first week, £2 in the second week – all the way up to £52 on the final week.

Genius!