Congratulations! You’ve survived the most fearsome and rewarding chamber of the pyramid! Way to go!

That was a formidable challenge, but you survived — and succeeded!  It takes a lot of discipline to stick with a routine like this for 30 days, so give yourself a pat on the back. Perhaps you slipped sometimes, but you made it to the end.

Let’s take a look back at what we’ve learned over the past month.

Lesson #1: Discipline.

The first lesson of the Chamber of Treasures is discipline. It takes real discipline to commit to and follow through on the Envelope Game. The fact that you kept coming back proves that you’re ready to truly change your finances.

Lesson #2: Time.

A single day of discipline won’t fix your finances. But consistently exercising disipline over a series of days will. Now that you’ve seen the benefits of using the envelope for just one month, imagine the results if you kept it up for two months. Or twelve (a year). Or more.

Lesson #3: Rewards.

The final lesson of the Chamber of Treasure is rewards. Frugality is not about strict rules and pinching every penny until you’re miserable. It’s about freedom. By living the envelope system for just one month, you’ve been able to begin your emergency fund. By continuing, you’ll eliminate debt and build savings.

When you have no enslaving debts and the freedom to enjoy the fruits of your frugality, you’ll realize that living frugally doesn’t restrict you. Instead, it gives you more opportunties than you ever thought were possible.

Congratulations! You need a sharp eye for detail to survive the Chamber of Hieroglyphics! But you, my friend, have just such an eye.

Small details sometimes make all the difference between a wrong heiroglyphic and the right one.

Similarly, our finances often hinge on a series of seemingly insignificant decisions. Even little variations in a daily, weekly or monthly routine can make a big difference.

If you spend just $5.50 per day over the course of a career (roughly 45 years), you might be giving up the potential for more than $1 million in savings! Little differences really do matter.

In the final challenge in Egypt, you’ll join the Frugals in a month-long exploration of the Chamber of Treasures. If you remember to pay attention to the details, you’ll unlock significant treasures in your personal finances. Good luck!

That was insane! There were so many red apples that it was impossible to avoid them.

Most people end up losing a lot of Frugality Tokens in the Chamber of Forbidden Fruit, because it’s too hard to catch enough of the green apples to make up for the negative scores from all of the red apples.

No matter how many green apples you catch, you’ll still lose points if you catch more red ones. Similarly, no matter how much money you make, you’ll still wind up drowning in debt if you spend more than you make.

Let’s imagine that Frederick catches 15 green apples and 45 red ones. Then Francine catches only five green apples and four red ones. Who gains more Frugality Tokens? That’s right: Francine! If each apple is worth 25 tokens, Francine will earn 25 more tokens, but Frederick will have lost 750 tokens!

How much money you make is not as important to your financial health as always spending less than you make.

So why do we end up spending more and digging ourselves deeper in debt, when the solution is so simple? Sometimes the situation is out of our control, such as an emergency medical expense. On a month-to-month basis, however, we’re often caught in a spending trap because we buy things that we don’t need.

We’re constantly bombarded with messages enticing us to spend and consume. Advertising tells us that we’ll be happier if we buy a product. The news tells us about the latest and greatest gadgetry. And peer pressure can make us think we need new clothes, a nicer car or a night on the town. In reality, none of these things are necessary. They might be nice, but anything that leads to spending more than we earn is effectively enslaving us to debt.

In the next challenge, you’ll see how things change when you learn to ignore distractions. Go explore the Chamber of Scarabs now!

Wow! That was intense, wasn’t it? Did you take the time to carefully go through your finances and fill things out as accurately as possible? That effort will pay off.

Now that you know how you earn your money and where you spend it, you can see the big picture for your personal finances! Do you have money left over at the end of the month, or are you digging yourself deeper into a hole?

In the next chambers, you’ll explore how to harness this newfound knowledge for some significant savings. Play the Frugality Game!

Congratulations! You’ve successfully completed the first chamber of the Pyramid! Before we journey deeper into the depths, let’s consider what we’ve already learned.

When the pieces of the puzzle were out of order, it was difficult to know how everything fit together–you couldn’t see the big picture. The same thing is true of your finances. Until you know how much you’re spending, and where, you won’t be able to see how your finances fit together. If you can’t see how they fit together, how will you know where you’re succeeding and where you’re failing?

In the next chamber, you’ll have the opportunity to go through your finances step-by-step. As you create your Household Spending Plan, you’ll see where each piece of your financial life fits. When all the pieces are in place, you’ll be able to see the big picture, just like you did in the Chamber of Puzzles.

Ready? Let’s go!

First of all: “What’s a scarab?” The scarab (or “dung beetle”) was featured as a sacred symbol in ancient Egyptian artwork.

This resourceful creature gathers dung (its food source) into a ball up to 50 times its own weight. When the scarab travels, it takes its food with it by using its hind legs to roll the dung ball over any obstacles.

The beetle’s incredible focus earned the respect of the ancient Egyptians, who believed that the scarab and its dung ball represented a god who rolled the sun over the horizon in a similar way.

Go to the Adventurer’s Arcade and play the Chamber of Scarabs again. Now that you know that the red spheres won’t affect you, how many green spheres do you think your scarab will be able to catch? Go find out, then come back. I’ll wait…

…Did you go to the Adventurer’s Arcade and play the Chamber of Scarabs again?…

…Great! How many green spheres were you able to catch? Bet you were able to grab almost all of them. Why? That’s right–because you weren’t worried about the bad ones: you knew that they couldn’t affect you.

Now think about how that principle applies in your life.

Eliminating distractions allows you to focus on better opportunities. Focusing only on the best opportunities and ignoring distractions will benefit every aspect of your life.

For example:

• Avoiding an overpriced purchase may allow you to take advantage of a great deal you might not have noticed otherwise.
• Choosing to not purchase a DVD or spend a night on the town leaves you with more time to spend on other activities: exercise, selling things, or doing odd jobs.

Every dollar you save instead of spend increases your freedom. As long as you have it in your wallet, you can do whatever you want with it. Once it’s gone, however, so is your ability to choose where it goes–you’re stuck with your decision.

Let’s all learn a lesson from the lowly, yet sacred, scarab beetle: focus on the task at hand and remember why it’s so important. Then no temptation will be able to successfully distract you from your financial goals.

Now return to The Frugality Game to tackle the Chamber of Hieroglyphics!