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This may not be simple, but it if you need a little extra to push you along, this could be it. There is a ton of research out there that says how addictive video games can be. While this isn’t exactly a video game it could be the perfect option for you to gamify your budget and personal finances.
While it’s not exactly simple this doesn’t need to be complicated either. You need to start with why this is important to you. Just like everything else in your life, if it’s not important enough for you to do it, you won’t.
Find Your Why
Your “why” will become the objective of the game. Say you want to get your finances in order and increase your annual income by $12,000 so you can go on vacation.
Then you need to decide on things that you can do to reach the goal. For each thing you come up with you make it worth a certain number of points. You will use the points along the way to earn small rewards to keep you going and then you will have a set number of points for the main objective in the end.
For example:
Let’s say you have the objective to make an additional $12,000 in the next year. You break this down into $1,000 per month. You might decide to give yourself 10 points for every $20 that you make. So if you make the full $1,000 in the month you would have earned 500 points. If you make more than $1,000 you earn even more points. You could give yourself bonus points if you make more than $1,000 in the month too.
Then for a reward, you could make a few choices for different point amounts. So for 100 points you could earn going out to a movie or for 500 points a dinner out at your favorite restaurant. It doesn’t matter what it is. Maybe you use 50 points for a new lipstick. Plus you could not use any points and roll over the points month to month to reach a bigger reward. One of which is the big objective.
The objective should be about 70% of the total points that you need to earn. So in this example, you could get a maximum of 6,000 if you give yourself 10 points for every $20 earned. That means that you need 4,200 points to get the vacation. You can spend the other 1,800 any way you like.
Keep in mind that the big objective shouldn’t cost the total that is being increased in income. In this example, the vacation should be no more than $8,400 since that is 70% of the total income increase of $12,000. Of course, you can always spend less.
Tips for your game success
You will want to set up the points ahead of time. Don’t make it up as you go. Have everything written out and know what you are working for. In a family situation, you could have each member working to get points and then you all put them together to save for something like the family vacation.
Also it’s not just about making more money. This could be used to get points for a certain amount of money saved. Plus you could decide to earn points for changing to a bank that doesn’t have fees, improving your credit score or setting up a retirement account.
The main thing to think about with this is what are your goals? Decide what you want to achieve, the rewards that are motivating for you and then challenge yourself to earn those points as fast as you can.
To get you going here are some examples you can use to earn points:
- Earn X number of dollars from a side hustle within the next week, month or year
- Save X number of dollars in the next week, month or year
- Sell things you don’t need, could be points for the number of things sold or for the amount of money that you earned from each item
- Change banks to lower or eliminate fees
- Reduce your rate on credit card
- Improve your credit score to a certain number, say 640, 700, 750
- Negotiate a raise at work
- Change jobs to increase your pay
- Open a retirement account
- Buy a stock, bond, or mutual fund
- Bonus points if you exceed a certain benchmark
These are just some examples, it can be anything that you want and that is going to make your financial future better.
Here are some ideas for things you could earn points for, to get you going:
- Fancy coffee
- Makeup
- Dinner out at favorite restaurant
- Movie at the theater
- Concert
- New clothes
- Instapot
- Car detailing
- Massage
The key here is that whatever you are using as a reward for your points it must be something that you would really want. If you couldn’t imagine ever getting a massage then it doesn’t go on your list.
Pick a few things that are smaller items, a few medium priced items and then a few that are a little pricier. This gives you a variety and depending on how you’re doing at the game you might decide to only use your points for the smaller items so you save more points for later. No matter what you choose,