How to Stick to a 90-Day Savings Challenge (and Win)!

A 90-Day Savings Challenge sounds exciting, right? Until you’re 10 days in, eyeing your favorite takeout menu, wondering, “Why did I even start this?”

Trust us, we’ve been there! After completing a recent 90-day savings challenge to fight back against skyrocketing utility bills, we learned exactly what works—and what doesn’t.

So, buckle up! We’re taking you on a road trip to savings success, filled with our own real-life detours, pit stops, and a few happy dances along the way.

Step 1: Set a Specific Goal

Just saying “I want to save money” isn’t a real goal—it’s like setting out on a road trip with no address plugged into the GPS. You need a specific goal for any money-related goal. Treat a 90-day challenge like a derivation of a traditional No-Spend Challenge.

For our 90-Day Savings Challenge, we had a two-part goal:

• Lower our electric usage by 20%
• Reduce our actual electric bill by 10%

The curveball?

Our utility company hiked the summer supply rates by 50%. Pretty much overnight we had to figure out how to pivot. We estimated that by reducing our usage by 20% we would be able to lower our summer bills, rather than paying more.

We created a simple spreadsheet to look at last year’s bills, set specific electric usage limits for each month of our 90-day challenge, and track our progress.

To make it easier, we also made worksheets with questions like:

• What bill are we lowering?
• What’s our goal?
• When will we evaluate it?
• What does success look like?

Getting specific is half the battle.

Step 2: Break Down the Goal Into Smaller Steps

Whether your 90-Day Savings Challenge is about lowering bills or saving a lump sum (say, $1,000), break it down. A big number feels overwhelming, but saving $11/day? Way more doable.

To succeed at any savings challenge you need to take a hard look at your current habits and determine how you will change them. If you continue to spend as usual, you won’t save any money. When you think of a no spend challenge as a way to change your mindset and habits, you are more likely to be satisfied with the results at the end of your challenge.

Get hard data if you can. How much additional money are your habits costing you? For example, we knew the old wall oven tripled our energy using during the time it was turned on. So, for the 90-day challenge we vowed to not turn on the oven.

We shifted cooking habits (buh-bye, oven). We switched to the microwave or pressure cooker, both of which use significantly less power. Honestly, it felt kind of like a game. Could we beat yesterday’s usage? Turns out, yes. Not only that, it was kinda fun to keep trying to beat our personal best!

Here’s a look at all the specific areas we focused on (all of which were related to our energy usage) and the changes we intended to make in each area:

Step 3: Track and Adjust as You Go

Just like you check your speedometer and fuel gauge, you’ve got to monitor your progress. Our tools:

• A kilowatt meter to measure appliance usage
• Real-time usage maps from our utility provider
• A handwritten energy diary (yep, we tracked every microwave beep!)

We constantly asked: Where are we now? How far do we have to go?

Numbers don’t lie—and they can’t be un-seen. Once you know you’re spending $250 a month on takeout, it really makes you pause before grabbing Dominos Pizza (again).

We recommend checking your progress weekly. Monthly is okay, but the sooner you catch a slip, the easier it is to fix.

Step 4: Don’t Coast on Cruise Control

Our first month of the 90-Day Savings Challenge was AMAZING. We dropped energy usage by 30% and the bill by 19%. Cue the celebratory dance!

But we knew we had sixty more days to go. So we had to plan to pivot.

• Look ahead at what may cause our costs to increase (We had out-of-town houseguests for a week).
• Expect the unexpected – like trying to deal with three consecutive heatwaves with heat indices in near 108 degrees.
• Plan for exceptions. We knew turning on the AC because of the heatwave would cost us $5–$7/day, but, ultimately, it was unwise to sit in a super-heated house. So, the AC came on, with the understanding that as soon as the daily temperature dropped to under 85 degrees, we would turn it off.
• Raise the AC temperature by 4 degrees (because it’s so darn expensive to use) and sit in front of fans to stay comfortable.

Here’s the key. Don’t get comfortable when you’re ahead. Keep adjusting with micro-changes rather than waiting until the wheels fall completely off of your plan.

Step 5: Pivot When Needed

Stuff will happen. Guests will come. Temps will spike. Life will life.

When things don’t go according to plan, don’t quit—pivot. One habit might not be saving much. Swap it for one that does. If you’re doing something and it’s not helping? Ditch it. No guilt.

Step 6: When You Reah Your Destination Celebrate & Evaluate

At the end of our 90-Day Savings Challenge, we evaluated how we had done:

• Our overall energy usage was down by 22%
• The summer utility bills were lowered by 9% (We missed the 10% goal by just $4!)

How did we evaluate the impact of our 90-day challenge?

• What worked?
• What didn’t?
• What habits will stick around?
• What gave us the most bang for our effort?

You might want to dive into your next challenge. Or take a break. It’s your decision.

We extended the challenge! Our rates don’t drop until October, so we decided to keep riding the momentum.

Ready to take on the challenge?

Here are some resources:

Get your own set of the worksheets featured in this post.

Related posts to read:

• 8 No- Spend Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them
• 18 Easy Frugal Ways to Save Money on Electricity
• How to Save $1000 This Summer (Even on a Tight Budget)

Your turn!

What’s the hardest part of saving for 90 days? Tell us below—we read every comment!