save three months of living expenses

I should maybe speed this up a little bit.

I’m only really just starting this, because since I got my baby emergency fund together, I’ve been saving for my new laptop and my flight home. Now I’ve spent the money on them both and I can get the savings underway!

I’m impatient to start, but I guess it’ll have to wait until I get paid. :)

Well I had several thousand saved, but I bought a car, a vacation to Orlando, and my former boss hasn’t given me about $3,000 worth of paychecks. So my savings is down to a couple hundred dollars. It won’t get better too quick either, because I need to buy a dishwasher and water heater. Hope I can get back on track soon.

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I’ve made some good progress on this, and still have several bills paid in advance. I set up automatic transfers to force me to save $600 per month.

Wow, I have a lot of expenses. I’m living paycheck to paycheck, and my monthly expenses are $4,500. $4,000 for bills and $500 for groceries. So I guess that means my goal is $13,500. So that means I’m 2.25% of the way there, with enough saved to last an entire 2 days.

Here’s my expenses per month (not including credit cards which should be paid off in a few months):
Mortgage 1979.85
HELOC 472
Water 75 (estimate)
Electric 80 (estimate)
Comcast 56.22
AT&T 68.16
T-Mobile 44.29
Geico 45.42
Suzuki 236
Student Loans 780
Server 90
Food 500 (flexible)

Should add $650 this month. That’s about 15% of the goal.

I went to the link that junipurr said, and mine is around 4200. I am not too far off!

My Plan:

Savings account – One month expenses for emergencies (1400)- done!

Money Market account – Two months expenses for emergencies / joblessness. This is at a much higher rate of return than the account above. (2800)

CDs – I don’t have any yet. When I have filled the two slots above, I will start taking money into CDs for an even higher rate of return.

401(k) – I have 7% taken out weekly, but the company I work for doesn’t match anything, so I want to reduce the percentage and open a Roth IRA in addition to my 401(K)

I just went to Bankrate and found a neat worksheet that helps you calculate how much you need for three months worth of living expenses. For us, including absolutely every possible bill, we will need 4251 minimum. We have about 1000 in emergency money right now. It’s a lot farther to go than I thought.

http://www.bankrate.com/dls/news/financial_literacy/Jan07_emergency_fund_worksheet_a1.asp

Well, I’m up to $400 in savings so far. Not much, really, but better than nothing!