$20K Savings Challenge......May 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 May report.....

I have posted my May 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 May in the black!
The extra cash amount we ended the month of May with?.......$3,129.06
This was only possible due to the 3 paycheck month in May, as we had a rather large hospital bill co-pay due this month.

Income
We had $3045.02 left over from our income after our monthly expenses were deducted. 

Add in a per diem expense reimbursement check and interest gives us another $84.04.  This brought our gain to $3129.06 for May.

Outgo

As for the expenses this May, here are the good and the bad side of things....

HERE are the GOOD THINGS

 

*  The water bill was within a dollar of being the same as last month.
*  The credit card bill was $900 less.
*  There were no semi annual or quarterly  bills to pay.

*  The electric bill was almost $100 less.
*  The prescriptions were about $67 less than April.

HERE are the BAD THINGS

 

*  The dr./hospital bills(co-pays/deductibles) were $1500 more than in April.

*  The cash withdrawals were $280 more(mostly because of graduation).

*  We had a $346 vet bill(their annual visits + meds).
*  The food bill was about $100 more than budgeted food(and $65 more than last month).

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

We overshot the food budget by $100.55 last month.

The 2013 TOTAL so far.....
With 5 month behind us, our Savings Grand Total for 2013 stands at $11,726.84.  Only $8,273.16 left to save and 7 months left to accomplish this.

That comes out to $1,181.80 per month for the next 7 months to reach the goal.

Looking ahead for June......

*  Still waiting for the other medical shoe to drop(ie--medical bills from tests and procedures to slowly drip into my mailbox).  I foresee more medical spending on co-pays and deductibles this month.
 

*  Hubs is repairing and opening the pool for the year, which means a sky-high water bill in June.

*  The only non-normal bill from last June was extra cash spending for a short vacation to Ohio, which isn't happening this June.
 

So how was your May financially?
 

Did you put ordinary living expenses on a credit card last month and not pay it off in full when due?
Did you spend less than the income you had in May?
Did you received any "extra" or unexpected money in May like a tax refund or bonus at work,
and what did you do with those funds?
Did you stay within your budget or not?
Did you pay off any debt or put extra toward your mortgage principle?

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