save $5000

Argh. The fuel pump in my fiancee’s car just had to be replaced, costing $1600.

Although we have just one savings account, we have it divided up into categories on paper – and this expense has drained everything we had for car repairs, as well as most of our emergency fund. Oh, well. I guess that’s what an emergency fund is for, anyway. It’s frustrating, though, because we were getting quite close to $5000 and now this has pushed us way back! Yet another bad thing about cars… they’re such money pits.

The good news, though, is that we played at a wedding last week and earned $200, which went straight to savings! That was a nice surprise, and it certainly came at the perfect time.

Also, I got a rebate check for $2. Wow, I know. I was tempted to not even send away for it, but I’ve forgotten so many rebate offers (that were actually decent) in the past that I felt the need to practice changing my habits.

So, now we have $2,972.63… 59% of my goal. And alas, we’ve only paid half of the fuel pump cost so far. Oh, well, we’ll get there eventually.

I just put in our monthly transfer to savings, plus the tiny (but appreciated) dividend earned by another savings account (it’s for storing our tenants’ security deposits, so we just keep it a fixed amount of money in there).

Now we’re at $3802.30.

Unfortunately, what we took out of our savings last month added up to a lot more than what we put in, so we’re down to $3,340.30. But we’re due to make our monthly transfer to savings in a couple of days, so that will bump it up considerably. I still definitely think we can get to $5000 by the end of the year.

Getting so close! My fiancee got another insurance refund recently, which bumped us up to $4410.89!

And we were due to make our monthly transfer to savings yesterday – we just haven’t gotten to it yet. I’ll make sure we do that tomorrow. There are also some transfers from savings that we need to make, so hopefully the ingoing money will be more than the outgoing. :-)

We added my economic stimulus money and a refund that my fiancee got from his insurance company when he switched over to a different provider (which incidentally is saving us money!).

We’re now at $4201.20—84% of my goal! I can’t believe we’ve managed to save so much in such a short period of time. Our financial planner told us that when we started managing our money well we’d find that windfalls would start coming into our hands. Even though she was basing that idea on religious beliefs that I don’t share, her prophecy has come true so far!

We have only $798.80 left to save (and then it’s on to the next savings goal, of course…).

Added my fiancee’s newly-arrived economic stimulus money (I was wrong in my last entry, we hadn’t gotten it yet). Also added a few dollars that I found while organizing our desk—it was some busking money my fiancee had earned a while back (we both play the Irish pipes and tin whistle, and he sometimes plays on the street just for fun and the occasional tip).

Now we’re at $3872.89, which is about 77% of $5000! Just a little over a thousand left to save and my economic stimulus money is still on the way!

My fiancee’s mom gave us some money to put away for future fire insurance and property tax payments. We also added our usual monthly amount, my fiancee’s economic stimulus money (mine hasn’t come yet), and both of our California income tax refunds… his was $4 and mine was a whole $18! Someday I’ll actually learn about taxes and our economic system (ugh, I dread that day) and understand why we get these strange, tiny amounts of money back. But of course, every little bit counts.

I am amazed that we’re now at $3564.89. That means we’re 71% of the way to achieving this goal.

Due to a couple of good things happening, we’re already up to $2,829.29!

First, one of my fiancee’s friends paid back some of the money he owes us. He still owes more, so hopefully the trend will continue.

Second, my fiancee just landed a full-time job, with full benefits! That hasn’t affected our savings yet, as he doesn’t start until June 17, but I’m already excited about working out our new budget and seeing how much more we’ll be able to save each month.

$2170.11 to go….

For some reason, I felt inspired to set this goal at the beginning of the year, when I didn’t even have a savings account! I just felt like somehow I’d make it happen.

Sure enough, in February, my boyfriend and I got engaged, and we combined our finances. We went to see one of Dave Ramsey’s recommended financial planners and she helped us develop a spending/savings plan and figure out where we could cut down on expenses. We’re doing great and loving the feeling of knowing exactly where all our money is going and when.

Unfortunately our income is pretty low; I’m a full-time college student and only work part-time. My fiancee was doing the same thing but had to quit school because he wasn’t making enough money. Now he’s looking for full-time work again. Once he gets it we should be able to save a lot more than we currently can!

We have $1543.26 in the savings account right now. My original goal was to save $5000 by the end of 2008, and I think we might actually be able to do it. Only $3456.74 to go!