Every project on this page came from a workshop
participant who started with no formal finance background.
These are working savings plans — built over 6 to 12
weeks, tested against real household budgets.
214completed projects
38cities represented
6–12weeks per plan
S
Selected participant plans
Three projects chosen from the
2023–2024 cohort. Each one addresses a different
starting condition — different income level, different
savings horizon, different household size.
3 featured from
cohort 2023–2024
18-month horizon
Weronika Dąb — emergency buffer
first
Weronika came in with irregular
freelance income ranging from 2,800 to 5,100 PLN per
month. Her plan prioritised a 3-month expense buffer
before any longer-term savings allocation — a sequence
most participants skip. She reached her buffer target
in month 11.
Tomasz and his partner had
combined monthly income of 8,600 PLN but no shared
savings structure. The plan mapped out fixed
contributions from each income stream, accounting for
4 months of lower earnings during a planned parental
leave period.
Agnieszka Rzeźnik — planning
across a 5-year window
Agnieszka is a secondary school
teacher in Białystok with a stable monthly salary of
4,200 PLN net. Her project is notable for its
structure: she divided the 5-year window into three
distinct phases, each with a different savings rate
and a different purpose — liquidity first, then
medium-term reserves, then a down payment fund.
The plan accounts for two salary
increments and one planned career interruption. It was
the most detailed submission in the 2024 cohort and
has since been used as a reference example in the
workshop materials.
The point of publishing participant work is not to
showcase success stories. It is to show the range of
problems that structured savings planning addresses —
and how differently each person approaches the same
task.
Plans built during the workshop are based on each
participant's actual household data — not hypothetical
numbers or average figures.
Most participants adjust their plan at least once
during the workshop, usually after the cash-flow
mapping exercise in week 3.
The gap between what people think they can save and
what they can actually save averages around 340 PLN
per month across 2024 cohorts.
Participants from smaller cities consistently
produce more conservative plans — a pattern that
reflects real cost-of-living differences, not lower
ambition.
No project here was completed without revision. The
revision process is considered part of the assignment,
not a sign of failure.
Participation does
not guarantee outcomes
These projects reflect
individual effort and starting conditions. The
workshop provides a structured method and expert
feedback — what participants do with it after the
programme ends is entirely up to them. Results vary,
and that is expected.