Save or spend on Black Friday? Here's a tool to help you save

It's Black Friday, you've had your fill of turkey and pie, and now you're ready to spend! The day after Thanksgiving in the U.S. is one of the "biggest shopping events of the year" (Ernst, 2024), driven by discounts on most items (e.g., "electronics, toys, clothing...") and "the start of the critical holiday shopping season" (Hayes, 2023).

You've also wanted to start your starter emergency fund and save $1,000 to reach Dave Ramsey's Baby Step 1. Instead of spending, here's something free to help you out of debt! Today is a good day to start saving and 'wait...you can get it later if you still want later'.

We've been asked about the approaches used in 'How long will it take me to save enough for Baby Step 1?'. Especially, how do we calculate the time to get to $1,000 or just a bit more in the starter emergency fund? You ask, you get it! We used an online spreadsheet to highlight examples in 'Can't save a dime?' and 'How long will it take...?'

The link to the Google Sheet 'How long it takes to hit Baby Step 1' is here

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19rebZXCVzyAZ4IwZmezSZD0Ljlt5hRXJutcb0TQvDJI/edit?usp=sharing. The content is for informational purposes only, you should not construe any such information or material as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice. Any reference to specific products or services in this document is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an endorsement by Little Success Habits.

The spreadsheet is editable after you save it a copy. You can make a copy by clicking 'File' and then 'Make a copy'.

The Net Income ($/mth) will change by editing the Bi-weekly income cell. Play with it for your situation. Then the comparison of saving more every week (increasing by 1% of the net income per month every week), and saving 10% per bi-weekly paycheck will be updated.

For example, if the Bi-weekly income cell (A2) is set to $2,400, the calculations and the charts will change to highlight an estimated amount of time to save $1,000 (or a bit more) to hit Baby Step 1.

Bi-weekly income - Take home pay ($)	Net Income ($/mth)
$2,400.00	$4,800.00

In this example, it would take 6 weeks to save over $1,000 in the first approach where more is saved every week, compared to 10 weeks where a fixed amount is saved every paycheck. The calculations will show 'hit1000' and the week number when the cumulative saved equals or exceeds $1,000. In the first approach, $1,008 would be saved in 6 weeks compared to $1,200 saved in 10 weeks. This assumes nothing is spent from the starter emergency fund. The interest earned in the savings account is not added to the cumulative saved, as it is likely to be small in the examples. The approaches and examples are provided for illustration and educational purposes only.

Enjoy the tool to help you save this Black Friday! If you have questions or suggestions on this, please let us know.

To your success.