$24K Challenge.......JUNE 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 June report.....

I have posted my June 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 June with a greater than needed amount.
The extra amount we ended the month of  June with?.......$2,302.33

Income
We had $2143.78 left over from our income after our monthly expenses were deducted.
 

Other monies received in June totaled $158.55.  This included interest made on accounts, a allergy med rebate and 2 dividend checks.

This brought us to our gain of $2302.33.
Since we have no debt anymore, this goes into savings.

Outgo

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

HERE are the GOOD THINGS

 

*  The electric bill went down $47.21 from May's bill.
*  The credit card bill was $2196.18 less than in May.  Some of the spending(for the car and sofa)on it came out of the Bonus money received earlier this year so didn't affect this Challenge(good) but did affect our Net Worth(bad).

 

HERE are the BAD THINGS

 

*  The cash withdrawals were $50 more than May.
*  Quarterly Garbage bill was due.
*  Private music lessons were $40 more than May.
*  We had a vet bill for the dog....her annual check-up and shots.
*  We had 2 dental bills to pay.

 

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

The 2014 GRAND TOTAL.....
With 6 months accounted for, our Savings Grand Total for 2014 is $11,672.54
That's only $327.46 short at this point of the $12,000.00 I should have put aside after 6 months.
I was $629.79 behind in May, I am less behind in June.

Yay!
  

 

Looking ahead for July......

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

*  The lime green chair purchase will be due on July's credit/card bill but so far we don't have massive amounts charged to the card....yet. lolz
 

 

So how was your June financially?
  

Did you spend less than the income you had in June?
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