Have a significant savings account

Savings depleted with necessary dental work. It’s back to the grindstone, but we’ve got it going again so it’ not an empty account. Did pay off a credit card though! Kind of dismayed at my HUGE student loans that I’ll start chipping away at next year… Never was told how daunting that is. Would have preferred to work harder on scholarships. Hindsight :-P Proud of ourselves for sticking to the plan in any case.

Whahoo! Got my raise! Now I have auto deposit to savings and a debt payoff snowball going! I worked out a more detailed budget so every dollar has a place to be and my husband’s checks are now being integrated into the same account so all I do is allot pocket money for each of us during the month. Next on the list is to start paying bills a month in advance… so we’re living a month ahead. That will begin later this year, got to finish paying off some stuff. But life is good!

Ok, set up auto deposit every paycheck. I asked for a raise and if I get it I’ll add that to the auto deposit. I’ll give that a month or two then re-evaluate and see if I can’t do more. I know I can, I just need to figure out HOW. I started taking out cash for grocery and gas so we can’t possibly overspend in that area- when the cash is gone, no more groceries or road trips. It does work. Same for hay.. only if the horses eat less hay than expected, then I roll over the leftover funds for their other bi-monthly or yearly needs like wormers, meds, and vaccines. That works as well.

This isn’t working. It might have in another time and place, but my Mother keeps asking for money and we have splurged on a camera and books WAY too much (probably to keep ourselves sane despite extended family meddling). I may return to this idea at a later time, I still believe it is a good one. Right now I’m going with saving 10% of my paycheck each pay period. However, I know we have to get something bigger going soon because we need a truck to haul horse feed (it’s just killing the car) and we need a savings in preparation for a big move in the next 2 years. I’d like to be better prepared this time. I thought I made decent money, but inflation and family are keeping us down. I’m ready to drop both and move out to a self-sustaining farm already! Anyway, I’m just going to focus on the 10% until we feel ready to ‘struggle’ again.

Off to a stumbling start with some family emergencies re-directing the cash-flow. Nonetheless, it is an official start and somewhat successful. I will continue trying to stick to it, but I foresee some modification requirements in the future. Still working on it. Still pleased, but kinda struggling with the ‘no spending for 2 WHOLE months’ rule. :-) I factored in dates with Darling Husband already, so it’s not like we don’t go do anything, but we want stuff… that we may use… anyway. Working on it.

Yes! Finished step 1, have existing savings account with a satisfactory starter balance. So step 2 is going to be a circular save, save, spend method over the year… I will count this successful in Sept because that makes June and July savings months (every available dollar to savings) and Aug a spending month (catch up on larger needed purchases and any long trips etc). Therefore: Aug, Nov, Feb, and May will be ‘spendable’ months and the other months 100% savings. I chose this arrangement because each of those spending months preceed a holiday of some sort. I”m very excited about this idea and i’ll post again later if it works. Step 3 will be dishing the total out to what the savings was for… retirement, emergency fund (what I currently consider it), large purchase fund,... whatever. This will take further contemplation. But thats OK, I”m SO HAPPY I got this started! That’s a big accomplishment.

Starting this in May. Just have too many expenses now. But I have formulated an excellent plan and I can’t wait to see if it is successful!