“Every” month I do a debt update, (or at least I’m supposed
to). I’m sick of reporting my debt and then feeling depressed about it. Because
of that, I’m going to start doing a savings progress report every month. I’m
hoping this will motivate me and help keep me accountable and aware of my
goals.
I have a few savings goals for the year 2020: first, I want
to continue putting $50 into each of The Kids savings accounts and $100 into
ours; second, I want to save $5000 above and beyond our normal savings; third,
once our car is paid off, I want to put the “car payment” into savings; and
lastly, I want any tax refund we get to go towards our summer vacation. (This
is assuming we get about the same amount of money back in taxes that we did last
year. Hoping!)
So let’s see how we did in February!
1. $50 and $100 monthly contributions to The Kids
and our own savings: yep! This has been a part of our budget for years and is
almost automatic!
2. Save $5000 above and beyond normal savings: So
far so good! I found a savings challenge on Pinterest that gave you different
amounts to save each week, for 52 weeks, to reach $5000 by the end of the year.
I am on track for that but additionally, I have been saving half of any extra
money I get unexpectedly. This includes found money and refund checks from our
refinance, and going forward, will include any overtime The Husband gets.
3. Once our car is paid off, put extra “car
payment” into savings: with our last payment we paid our car off. The normal
payment is $350 but we only needed $295 to pay the car off. The remaining $55
went into savings! So far so good.
4. Use our tax refund for vacation: we haven’t
filed out taxes yet so we aren’t quite sure where that will fall. Hopefully by
this time next month, I can update about this.
Now, lets see exactly how our progress fell out… Because I
didn’t think to start this in January, I am going to post January’s and
February’s progress together.
Ours:
deposits made: January February
$225
(savings challenge) $1350
(refinance and challenge $1300 (refinance
refund) $228.60
(refinance refund)
$171.74
(escrow account refund) $100
(normal savings)
$100
(normal savings) $8
(found money)
$150.40
(overtime)
$1796.74
(January) $1892.00
(February)
The Boy:
deposit made: $50 $50
The
Girl: deposit made: $50 $50
In large part due to our refinance, we have already saved $3433.74
of our $5000 “extra” goal. We’ve also saved our normal $100 per month for us
and $50 per month per kid and set $55 aside from our car payment. In total this
year, we have saved $3888.74! I would call that a win
Only 2 full months into the year and we are already at 69%
of our goal to add an additional $5000 to our savings! That is awesome! I know
a lot of that money came from the refinance but alternatively, we didn’t just
throw it away. We used it to meet our goals and gave each dollar a specific
purpose.
I realize we still have a lot of debt to get rid of and this
money would go a long way towards helping us to get out of debt, but it also
goes a long way in giving me peace of mind! And that is just as important as
getting out of debt.
Our savings account still isn’t where I would like it to be,
but we are making progress; we are actually making very good progress on the
savings front. I know most months won’t be like these two, but I’m thankful for
the jump start they gave me and hopeful that our savings will keep moving in
the direction we want it to move. After several expenses, our savings account
took a big hit. Now it’s just a little below the minimum amount where I feel
comfortable; and barring any unforeseen circumstances or expenditures, we
should be back up to my comfort level by mid-April.
As always, please wish us luck on our journey to financial
freedom!
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