I have posted my DECEMBER End of Month $30K $AVING$ CHALLENGE Totals.Check out the side bar to your right for the specific numbers.
I have to report that we finished up December in the black yet again!
The extra cash amount we ended the month of December with was.......$3,787.26.
Income
We had $3,595.01 left over of DH's salary after expenses were deducted. Add in $175.25 of Rebates applied to the food expenses, along with $17.00 in rolled Coins and you have a deposit of $3,787.26 toward the Savings Challenge!
Our monthly target is an average of $2,500.00 to reach our Year End Goal. We passed the $30K yearly target mark in November.
Outgo
As for the expenses in December.....there were a few large bills. The credit card bill(which is paid off each month)was over $1100(had to replace my computer's hard drive among other things) and 2 car repairs cost us over $1500 as well. There were also some smaller non-regular or quarterly bills, like paying for the replacement retainer for Daughter's ortho and the sewage bill. Then both the water bill and the electric bill came in VERY high this month...ouch.
It's a good thing there was an extra paycheck this month because otherwise we would have barely had anything to throw into the Savings Challenge pot after paying the bills.
The good news with December is that nothing I bought for the Holidays was put on a credit card. Hubs did put his gift to me on the card and we have some Dining Out on it(Daughter's Bday, Steakhouse with #1 Son home from school and Christmas Eve eating out tradition at the local Chinese Restaurant). Add in the usual gasoline purchases and such and we still will have a substantial CC bill but nothing swollen beyond being able to pay it all in January.
No interest, no payments being dragged out until June or worse.....yay!
The Food Budget costs for December are in another post, which is located HERE. The actual Food/Toiletries spending in December was kept low due to the large rebate amount received that month.
YEAR-END GRAND TOTAL.....
With December's addition we ended the $30K Savings Challenge with a Total of $34,019.88 saved for the Year!
I am so happy with how much we've been able to save in 2010. This is $10,000+ more than we saved in 2009!
It was a great year! I think the key to staying on course and having a good result was to keep track month-by-month and doing it publically. If I had no one holding me accountable how easy would it have been to have just stopped putting the money away when things got too hard? Yep, it would have been very easy to let it go and go on spending sprees for junk we didn't need.
So how was your December financially? Leave a comment and share with us what you did with your money, both the good and not-so good. Do you have any tricks or tips that help you to end your month before the money runs out? Let us know!
If you posted your financial progress on your own blog, leave a link in the comments so we can go check you out too!
Sluggy
Holy cow, Sluggy! You all save a LOT of money. You may have said, but is this in addition to retirement savings?
ReplyDeleteThere is no way we could save that much in a year. The apartment complex we are in is the cheapest in the area, though amazingly it is better maintained than the more expensive ones. We would have to move to "the bad part" of town to get any cheaper.
We have the cheapest phone, internet, car insurance and electricity I have found. Prepaid cell phones and rarely use them, so really, really cheap.
I can probably shave a little more off the grocery spending, but not $30,000.
On the plus side, we I do have a really nice retirement fund and put 20% of my income in that. And our emergency savings is enough to keep me feeling comfortable. We took a little out for Christmas, but it will be replenish plus more when I get my bonus in March.
Oh, and all Christmas purchase put on CCs have already been paid off. No interest payments for us, either.
You really inspire me, Sluggy!
Congrats Sluggy! That's awesome!
ReplyDeleteYAY!!!! Congrats on more than meeting your goal - that's fantastic!!!! Are you going to increase the goal for 2011?
ReplyDeleteGood Job Sluggy! We had a tough December and will have a hard January, likely a tight February too. The vacuum cleaner just died, which we can handle in a week. However, a major illness in the family means a lot of travel we hadn't counted on (mileage, meals, parking, gas, etc.). But this is the reason I subscribe to the "pay yourself first" theory -- we might not be accumulating a lot in liquid savings, but we're matching you as far as retirement funds go.
ReplyDeleteFrances--My savings is strictly from net pay. Hubs has direct deposit into a company matched fund before we get the check. We put 8% in and company matches 4%, so savings 12% but only 8 of it is coming out of his check. He also have a set % taken out for charity and a set amount dumped into an investment portfolio account before I get the check. Hubs also have a company funded pension account we get when he leaves/retires. So everything we get in his check is fair game for me.lol
ReplyDeleteIf you put 20% of pay into savings you are doing awesome Frances! I feel its more a matter of % you save of income rather than the $ amount you save. Hubs income may be way different from yours so it's comparing apples to oranges in that respect. Most people once they pay the bills and put $ into retirement don't have much extra to save so don't feel badly on that.
Precious--Thanks!
AlexM--Nothing as important as throwing $ into retirement in my book...especially if you are over 30. I'd rather be short of liquid cash and have to wait a week to replace an appliance than buy it now w/a c/c and pay for it for the next 5 years 10x over OR deplete a savings account to get it now but end up living in a cardboard box when you retire because you did that all the time when you were working.lolol
I just got back to check if you had responded to my comment. I think it really is amazing how well you do with your savings. I am really thrilled with my retirement accounts and love watching that money build up. I get a 5% company match in my 401K and always forget to even think about that. But it does add up.
ReplyDeleteAnd we still seem to have plenty of money left over after the bills, so I am happy.
Keep up the work. You really are an inspiration.