$24K Challenge.....May Update

Every year I keep a close eye on our monthly expenses and our monthly income.
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, health insurance premiums, long term care insurance premiums, investments and retirement savings.  It's automatic so we are never tempted to NOT put it into savings.

Once the automatic savings amounts, plus taxes and medical/dental/vision premiums 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, annual etc.) and our variable bills(like food, eating out, clothing  etc.)  Anything left over once our monthly expenses are paid, I put aside into a Savings Challenge. 

For 2014 I am continuing my Yearly Savings Challenge.  I am raising the Goal amount slightly to $24,000 this year, $4K more than my goal for last year.

On to the May report.....

I have posted my May End of Month $24K $AVING$ CHALLENGE Totals.
Check out the Savings Challenge page tab at the top of the blog 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 $2,000.

I have to report that we finished up May with a greater than needed amount.
The extra amount we ended the month of  May with?.......$3,299.61.

Income
We had $3217.59 left over from our income after our monthly expenses were deducted.
 

Other monies received in May totaled $78.52.  This included interest made on accounts and a per diem from Hub's work.

This brought us to our gain of $3299.61.
Since we have no debt anymore, this goes into savings.

Outgo

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

HERE are the GOOD THINGS

 

*  The electric bill went down $ 151.72, almost half of what it was in April.
*  The water bill went down $4 and change.
*  The cash withdrawals were $900 less than last month.
*  Private music lessons were $40 less in May(fewer lessons).
*  May was an extra paycheck month which helped our bottom line greatly!
 

HERE are the BAD THINGS

 

*  The c/c bill was $1886.33 more than April's bill.  Most of this was vacation spending from April
*  The food bill went up $54.06 from April's food spending and April's spending was too high.

 

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

The 2014 GRAND TOTAL.....
With 5 months accounted for, our Savings Grand Total for 2014 is $9,370.21
That's only $629.79 short at this point of the $10,000.00 I should have put aside after 5 months.
The extra paycheck in May almost got me caught up on where I need to be at this point and I am less behind than I was last month.

Yay!
  

 

Looking ahead for June......

*  I will continue to do this Savings Challenge and report in each month on how it is going.

*  The furniture purchases in May and accompanying Hubs to his conference in DC expenses will be due on the credit card bill in June.

*  Back to 2 paychecks this month.

*  The graduation party for #2 Son and #1 Son is visiting in June so expenses will be going up.
 

*  The food budget will be full blown out of control this month with all the family coming and the party.  I'll keep all my receipts and when it's all over I'll tally it up.  I'm not going to torture myself and look at them until the month is over. lolz
  

 

So how was your May financially?
  

Did you spend less than the income you had in May?
Did you stay within your budget or not?
Did you pay off any debts or put extra toward your mortgage principle or into savings in an emergency fund or a retirement account?

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