If you do it backwards, starting at $52 and work down you see an immediate result. At the end of the first month you have just over $200 in there as compared to about $10 if you work up. Not only that, instead of having to come up with almost $50 a week in the last month, just over $200 total right before Christmas, you only have to come up with about $10 when money tends to get tight. Seeing that immediate result also tends to give you a positive feeling that it's working and you may not get discouraged when you only see $10 after the first month. It's psychological but think about what feels better, seeing about $350 at the end of Feb or $36 even though in the end you end up with the same amount? Also knowing that the money you are putting in every week goes down helps the psyche. Who knows, you might even find that an extra $20, $35, or $50 every week (or when you can) isn't too bad to come up with so you throw some extra in every week. At the end instead of having almost $1400 in there you could easily have $2500 or more.