save 20% of my salary every month

this month. I will have to change this goal though, seeing as my medicine costs have skyrocketed by an outrageous 30% over the past 2 months (I suspect I’ve got our new Health Minister to thank for this…) and food has NEVER been this expensive… I can only expect a salary increase in July, and I’m (unfortunately) not expecting anything in line with the kind of inflation we’re experiencing at the moment.

On the bright side, I’m only a few thousand rand away from having saved R20 000. That feels good :)

simply impossible to do in the first 4 months of the year :( I don’t get paid when on leave, so in Feb I only worked 15 days. And our country has a ridiculous amount of public holidays in the beginning of the year – April for instance only has 18 work days?? It’s difficult enough just to stay afloat in the first quarter of the year, never mind managing saving anything (it also doesn’t help that I’ve had all these PC related expenses – screen, power supply etc…)

At least it hasn’t been necessary to dip into my savings account, which I’m thankful for. And I’ve been able to keep my credit card balance on 0.00 – another positive thing… Just need to ride this out and get back to saving as soon as things settle down in May. Bleh…

23% this month… Yeah baby :) _{It could have been more if I didn’t have to pay a ridiculous amount of property tax.} At least everything is paid now, and I’ve still got more than enough to see me to the end of the month. Because we’re not really big on Christmas, I won’t have major expenses in that department. And I’m working all through the month, doing 3 people’s work – hopefully there will be some extra payment for that… Must just find a way to curb new book spending!!!

I saved 14% of last month’s salary YESTERDAY MORNING AT 4AM WHEN IT FINALLY SHOWED UP IN MY ACCOUNT!!! It really pisses me off that my company doesn’t bother paying me on time – because of that possibility I always have to ensure that there’s still money in my account on the 1st of every new month in the event of them not paying me and my debit orders going off. BUT at least I was able to save. That’s good :)

I’ve finally reached the magical R10 000 mark! It took me about 5 months and it wasn’t even that difficult – I’ve just gotten into the habit of “paying myself first” every month, and that forces me to budget the remainder of the month, which is a good thing in these trying times :)

So this morning I went to my bank to open an investment account. It’s called Park It, and I’ll receive 11.55% interest p/a which is a lot better than what I’ve been earning. Of course, as fate would have it, I didn’t wear any make-up, and was dressed in pants that were way too big for me, and guess what – I got the hottest banker to help me :) He was really sweet, and very impressed with my savings technique ;) Lol!! I have to go back on Monday to sign the papers – I’ll be sure to dress better next time :D

This is the first time in my life that I’ve been able to save this big an amount. Pathetic I guess, if you take into consideration that I’m almost 30 years old… But better late than never :) I’m in control of my finances for a change, the only one in my group of friends who can claim this, and most of them earn more than I do!

I know I can save a lot more every month – my biggest luxury is books… But unfortunately we have a crappy public library system here, so that’s not an option, and stopping reading is definitely not an option. The books I ordered last week still haven’t arrived and I’ve been climbing the walls all week long because of it. Books are important for my sanity :) But at this stage I’m very impressed with my progress on this goal. Onto bigger and better things!! :D

I’ve transferred 10% if my August paycheck to my savings account today. Only 10%, because I’ve still got to buy my tickets for Aardklop next month, and I need some new clothes, seeing as I’m running around in rags from three years ago… I’m less than R1 400 away from R10 000 in the account. I plan to put all of that money into an investment account once I reach the R10 000 mark, and then start saving from scratch again. I’ll be able to earn much better interest with the investment account I’ve been checking out, but still have relatively easy access to the funds, should I need it. This should happen in October.

No debt. All my accounts (electricity, phone, internet, car insurance) paid. Whatever else I need I’m trying to do in cash.

Our Minister of Finance would be proud of me :D

First of all I have to quote our Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel. He is on a drive at the moment – I don’t know if you’ve heard his latest speech, where he says South Africans are not saving enough. He is really trying to encourage saving – that’s really a wonderful message that we’ve got to get across.

This month I decided to curb my spending on books – I blew almost a thousand rand last month on my little addiction… Shameful with the world facing a recession :/ I put away 16% of my salary. It would have been 26% had I not been good to myself and bought that ticket to Cape Town for September, but that’s okay. At least I didn’t have to touch my savings for the ticket, and my savings account is growing at a nice pace :) PLUS my little working holiday isn’t going to be that expensive seeing as I’m staying with friends all week long.

Feeling really good about this goal and my progress on it :D

This month I’ve only managed to save 11% of my salary – thus far… Getting my eyes tested took a big chunk out of my salary, so I guess I’m not doing too bad. (At least I didn’t have to dig into my savings to do it, and for that I’m grateful.) It had to be done, and I really can feel the difference – my eyes aren’t as strained during the day as they used to be.

Next month I need to buy my ticket for my visit to my colleagues in Cape Town, so there won’t be much saving then either, but I’m still going to try to put away as much as possible. Every little bit helps :)

I’ve noticed that I take too much taxis, so my first goal will be to use the public transportation. ( It implies that I have to improve my time management skills). Wish me luck..!!!

I did it!! I saved 22% of my last 4 weeks’ income :D And not only that, I also paid off my credit card (R3 000 odd), so the savings could actually have been much higher!! But hey, now my credit card balance is on R0.00 again (a good place to be with interest rates at 15.5%) and I can send all extra cash into the savings account!

This feels really good and I feel very motivated to save more next month! :D