Since I foresee food prices, as well as other expenses/costs/taxes to rise in 2011, I am only upping my Savings Challenge Goal by $2,000. While I hope to bring in more income this year, I feel we will be spending more on necessities in 2011, thus the small increase in goals.
So I present to you the beginning of the 2011 $32K Savings Challenge!
I have posted my JANUARY End of Month $32K $AVING$ CHALLENGE Totals.
Check out the side bar to your right for the specific numbers.
I have 2 goals really each month.....
The 1st is to actually finish each month in the black and not the red.
The 2nd is to hit the targeted savings amount of $2,666.67.
I have to report that we finished up January in the black!
The extra cash amount we ended the month of January with was.......$2,293.97.
Income
We had $2206.37 left over of DH's salary after our expenses were deducted. Before you decide that we are idle rich folks here, remember that we have NO mortgage or car payment, having paid off both of those debts. Oh, yah....and we hardly ever buy "things". I will say that Hubs has a very generous paycheck. ;-)
Add in $87.60 of Rebates applied against the food expenses and you have a deposit of $2293.97 toward the Savings Challenge!
Our monthly target is an average of $2,666.67 to reach our Year End Goal so we didn't meet our 2nd monthly goal in Jan. bleh
Outgo
As for the expenses in January....there were a couple large bills. The credit card bill(which is paid off each month)was over $1700. Then the electric bill came in VERY high this month since we lost our off-peak rate discount at the end of 2010. There was also a smaller payment, the garbage bill which is paid quarterly due in Jan.
The good news in January is that the cable bill did Not go up as it usually does each Jan. and we were able to reduce our cash withdrawals by about $300. Hubs spending other than gasoline purchases, is mostly through cash bank withdrawals and he does NOT keep/give me receipts. He is my Wild Card in trying to keep spending down and staying on a tight budget. It drives me nuts but there is little I can do about it other than give him the stink eye.... ;-)
The Food Budget costs for January are in another post, which is located HERE. The actual Food/Toiletries spending in January was a smallish disaster....ugh!
What's ahead for February.....
Looking back at last year's check register, I see we are bound to have another whopper of an electric bill this month and we have the semi-annual Car Insurance bill due.
Bleh.
I know our rates aren't as high as many areas of the country, given we have 3 cars on the road at present and 2 teenage drivers on the policy(one of them is also male which is even worse!lol), but it's still a LOT of money to shell out and I write that check under great duress! 8-P
On the bright side, I am going to try to keep a closer eye on Hubs cash withdrawals and question expenditures he makes more and I am hoping to SLASH the food spending budget in February by half.
Just call me crazy now and get it out of the way.....
YEAR-TO-DATE TOTAL.....
Being the 1st month of the year, our Savings total to-date is $2,293.97.
And if you need to start putting money into savings......What's that you say? You don't have an emergency fund of 6-8 months worth of expenses!!??....consider playing along in 2011 with me and Challenging Yourself to Save Money each Month Toward a Realistic for YOU Savings Goal!
Not everyone can shoot for $32K, I fully get that!
But everyone can shoot for some number, right!?
Find a money goal that works for you and put that number out there for everyone to see. It will help keep you accountable to your goal if other eyes are on you.
Ooo, that sounded kind of creepy didn't it? ;-)
So how was your January 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
So I present to you the beginning of the 2011 $32K Savings Challenge!
I have posted my JANUARY End of Month $32K $AVING$ CHALLENGE Totals.Check out the side bar to your right for the specific numbers.
I have 2 goals really each month.....
The 1st is to actually finish each month in the black and not the red.
The 2nd is to hit the targeted savings amount of $2,666.67.
I have to report that we finished up January in the black!
The extra cash amount we ended the month of January with was.......$2,293.97.
Income
We had $2206.37 left over of DH's salary after our expenses were deducted. Before you decide that we are idle rich folks here, remember that we have NO mortgage or car payment, having paid off both of those debts. Oh, yah....and we hardly ever buy "things". I will say that Hubs has a very generous paycheck. ;-)
Add in $87.60 of Rebates applied against the food expenses and you have a deposit of $2293.97 toward the Savings Challenge!
Our monthly target is an average of $2,666.67 to reach our Year End Goal so we didn't meet our 2nd monthly goal in Jan. bleh
Outgo
As for the expenses in January....there were a couple large bills. The credit card bill(which is paid off each month)was over $1700. Then the electric bill came in VERY high this month since we lost our off-peak rate discount at the end of 2010. There was also a smaller payment, the garbage bill which is paid quarterly due in Jan.
The good news in January is that the cable bill did Not go up as it usually does each Jan. and we were able to reduce our cash withdrawals by about $300. Hubs spending other than gasoline purchases, is mostly through cash bank withdrawals and he does NOT keep/give me receipts. He is my Wild Card in trying to keep spending down and staying on a tight budget. It drives me nuts but there is little I can do about it other than give him the stink eye.... ;-)
The Food Budget costs for January are in another post, which is located HERE. The actual Food/Toiletries spending in January was a smallish disaster....ugh!
What's ahead for February.....
Looking back at last year's check register, I see we are bound to have another whopper of an electric bill this month and we have the semi-annual Car Insurance bill due.
Bleh.
I know our rates aren't as high as many areas of the country, given we have 3 cars on the road at present and 2 teenage drivers on the policy(one of them is also male which is even worse!lol), but it's still a LOT of money to shell out and I write that check under great duress! 8-P
On the bright side, I am going to try to keep a closer eye on Hubs cash withdrawals and question expenditures he makes more and I am hoping to SLASH the food spending budget in February by half.
Just call me crazy now and get it out of the way.....
YEAR-TO-DATE TOTAL.....
Being the 1st month of the year, our Savings total to-date is $2,293.97.
And if you need to start putting money into savings......What's that you say? You don't have an emergency fund of 6-8 months worth of expenses!!??....consider playing along in 2011 with me and Challenging Yourself to Save Money each Month Toward a Realistic for YOU Savings Goal!
Not everyone can shoot for $32K, I fully get that!
But everyone can shoot for some number, right!?
Find a money goal that works for you and put that number out there for everyone to see. It will help keep you accountable to your goal if other eyes are on you.
Ooo, that sounded kind of creepy didn't it? ;-)
So how was your January 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
January for us ended in the black instead of the red ONLY because the now-infamous Amish Shed $4K that I thought would be paid in January hasn't actually been paid yet. Mostly due to weather delays. As a result, Feb will now end up in the red, but I'm determined that I won't help contribute to that by getting carried away in my grocery/toiletry/pet/misc spending that I do.
ReplyDeleteAnd it sounds like your H and mine have the same technique -- withdraw money at the ATM and just let it go without caring too much about receipts and such. It's always been kind of scary to me, but DH loves to go into a bar and peel bills off his ... um ... wad. I guess it impresses people... or he thinks it impresses people and that somehow matters...? Plus now that he's smoking again, he always seems to need cash to make those "Going out for cigarettes" trips to the local Qwikie-Mart.
Wow! Good for you!!!
ReplyDeleteAnother excellent goal! I am so impressed that you can save so much. Last month was okay for us, though I was temporarily irritated with the high grocery bill, but all is fine. We have a comfortable EF and it will be even more comfortable in March when I get my annual bonus. It all goes into the EF.
ReplyDeleteWe have been rolling our expense money for the past couple of months. Being retired, our money is handled a little differently. We have built our checking account up with our monthly allotment that we have to spend each month. Once we realized we didn't need to spend this money and the holidays were over, we checked to see how much we could transfer back. By carefully watching what we spent since November, we were able to transfer $ 8695. back into savings the end of January. I am very happy with this.
ReplyDeleteYou are doing awesome! I am always impressed by your savings especially since you are still supporting children.