$20K Savings Challenge....JANUARY Update

In our family we save money.
It is important to us to put money aside for "rainy days".  You know.....those unexpected days when things happen in your life that you can't plan on, but that DO happen and they cost you money you didn't know you'd need to pay out.

Our income is mainly the salary my Hubs draws from his job.  We have money taken off each paycheck from the top to put into savings, before we even get our hands on it.  This money that's taken goes into various pots....life insurance, investments and retirement savings.  It's automatic so we are never tempted to NOT put it into savings.
Once the automatic savings, plus taxes and medical/dental/vision payments are taken out, it leaves what we get to "live on".  From this amount we budget for bills, both monthly and irregular bills(semi-annual, etc.) and our variable bills(like food, eating out, etc.)  Anything left over once our monthly expenses are paid, I put aside into a Savings Challenge. 

For 2013 I am continuing my Yearly Savings Challenge.  I am going to keep the Goal amount at $20,000 again this year.

On to the January report.....

I have posted my JANUARY End of Month $20K $AVING$ CHALLENGE Totals.
Check out the side bar to your right for the specific numbers.

I have 2 goals 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 $1,666.67.

I have to report that we finished up January in the black!
The extra cash amount we ended the month of January with?.......$2,761.06

Income
We had $2,579.14 left over from our income after our monthly expenses were deducted. 

Add in a per diem check for mileage for some business traveling and some bank interest and we get another $181.92.  This brought our gain to $2,761.06 for January.

Outgo

As for the expenses this January, most of them were on the bad side, rather than the good side....

HERE are the GOOD THINGS

*  The medical bills were $192 lower.

*  The credit card bill was $98 lower.

*  There were no Xmas spending or car repairs/maintenance bills.

HERE are the BAD THINGS

*  The cable bill  monthly price went up in 2013 by $4 a mo.

*  The cash withdrawals were $100 higher.

*  The water bill went up $4+.

*  The electric bill went up by $43.

*  The quarterly garbage bill is due in January.

 

The Food Budget costs for JANUARY are in another post, which is located HERE

We managed to stay well within our $400 food budget in January.

The 2013 TOTAL so far.....
With 1 month behind us, our Savings Grand Total for 2013 stands at $2,761.06.

We surpassed our monthly goal by $1,000 in January!  This extra will be a very good thing later in the year, during some of our more financially challenging months, when we can't hit our target goal.

Looking ahead for February......

February is always a challenging money month for us, because our semi-annual car insurance premium is due, as well as our county taxes for the year.  I also have an unexpected dental bill to pay in February.

In addition, the electric/heating bill will be the highest one of the year this month.

I am hoping to keep the variable bills(food, credit card, Hubs cash withdrawals)wrangled in February to compensate.  And I will hope that none of the cars needs anything other than gas until March.

So how was your January financially?

Did you put the Holiday spending on credit, and do you have Christmas debt to pay now?
Did you spend less than the income you made in January?
Did you stay within your budget or not?

If you posted your financial progress on your own blog, leave a link in the comments so we can go check you out your progress too and celebrate with you!

Sluggy