2016 $38K Savings Challenge.....February 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 or these other categories.

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 an interest bearing Savings Challenge account.

For 2016 I am continuing my Yearly Savings Challenge.  I am raising the Goal amount to $38,000 this year, $10K more than my goal for last year.

I have reconsidered and changed my Goal from $40K to $38K for 2016.  With some things coming down the pike this year I thought it prudent to back up my Goal a couple of thousand.  8-)

On to the February report.....

I have posted my February End of Month $38K $AVING$ CHALLENGE Totals.
Check out the Savings Challenge page tab at the top of the blog for the specific numbers HERE.

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 $3,333.33.

I have to report that we finished up February with a goodly amount leftover but not my target amount.
The extra amount we ended the month of February with?.......$2004.57

Income

We had $1,848.87 left over from our income after our monthly expenses were deducted.

Other monies received in February totaled $155.70.  This included interest made on non-retirement accounts.

This brought us to our gain of $2004.57
Since we have no debt, this goes into savings.

Outgo

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

HERE are the GOOD THINGS

*  Phone charges and internet were approximately the same as last month.
*  The water bill was down $4.26 from Jan.  Of course with College Boy home for a week in March that bill will be going right back up. lolz
*  The February electric bill was only up $36.96 from January's bill.  With electric heat this is an amazing total for heat and lights, etc. in northern, mountainous PA. February is generally our highest electric bill month in the year.  I will be glad to see the electric start to slowing decrease for the next 8 months.
*  The credit card bill was down $642 from last month.  No travel=not much spending on that other than gas.
*  The cash withdrawals were down $500 from January's totals.
*  Hubs received a bonus(which is a VERY good thing!)but we won't be counting that into the regular income until we decided where to allocate those monies.  At this point it might go to more home improvements/repairs or to other issues I haven't brought up on the blog yet with medical and our kids.  I'll talk about this more fully in the months to come as decisions are made.

HERE are the BAD THINGS(and the not so bad)

*  The gas card was up by $7.39 in February.
*  Medical payments were up $854.62 from January due to satisfying our deductible for the year and paying out of pocket for many bills.
*  There was a 6 month car insurance payment due on one of the cars for $433.47
*  College Boy got a birthday check this month from us.

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

February was a fairly expensive month for us.  The regular bills were decently low but we had a lot of medical expenses, an irregular car insurance bill and birthday money to dole out.

With 2 month accounted for, our Savings Challenge Grand Total for 2016 is $4467.33.

Final thoughts on February---
We hit our insurance deductible this month so it was a less than stellar month for saving any cash.  If I didn't have that $1,700+ carried over from savings in December it would have been almost a zero sum game month in Feb.
And compared to February 2015 we put $1400+/- less into savings this February.
Even though we have $4K+ saved so far in 2016, we are over $2100 behind at this point in the year.
We won't be catching up with the financial goals until April I fear when the first 3 paycheck month of the year rolls around.

THOUGHTS going forward into March----

We have a small amount to pay on our state taxes and some medical payments due but the bad thing is a big irregular bill due in March-real estate taxes. ugh.
There is no travel or planned extra spending so far for March so I hope we can stash away at least $1K this month given the tax bill.
Only time will tell though.....

So how was your February financially?
  

Did you spend less than the income you had in February?
Did you stay within your budget or not?
What did you do with any money leftover at the end of the month?
Did you pay off any debts or put extra toward your mortgage principle or into savings, in an emergency fund or a retirement account?
Or did you blow it on a want?

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

As we go forward into 2016 why not make this new year the one were you clean up your finances and pay off your debts.
Plan to set something aside if you don't already now or increase what you bank now for your future self.
Live below your means and keep some change for a rainy day....because no matter how sunny it is in your life now, dark clouds come along and you'll be glad you have that umbrella to keep you dry.

Sluggy

2016's Savings Challenge Goal

$28K Savings Challenge Updates & 2016's Savings Challenge Goal

So this Savings Challenge I do every year, well, since 2009 at least........I use the previous year's SC $ saved as an emergency fund for the following year.

IE-the money saved in 2012 was used to fund emergencies & irregular expenses in 2013 when regular income didn't cover everything.
Then at the end of following year, when all the emergencies that were going to take place had, I took whatever was left in that SC and put it into an interest bearing non-retirement account of some sort and it became "permanent". And hopefully when we retire it will be added to our sack o' money/retirement funds.

I started my personal Savings Challenge in 2009 when I was on a Yahoo group called "The Compact".  I was younger and pretty naïve about how much I could save from our income then and challenged myself to put away 60 THOUSAND DOLLARS!  Yes, 6 with 4 Zeroes after it. lolz

I didn't even get halfway there.
But you know what?
It didn't matter that I failed at my goal.
What mattered is that I had a concrete number goal and I saved something even if I didn't achieve that goal number!

They say it's hard to save money if you don't have a target so figure out your target.  Then you can set about figuring out how to reach it.

In 2009 I saved $23,865.36
We used $13,460.81 of that money in 2010 for unexpected expenses, sending the remaining $10,404.55 to permanent savings.

In 2010 I saved $34,019.88
We used $427.81 of that money in 2011, sending the remaining $33,592.07 to permanent savings.

In 2011 I saved $34,461.31
We used $2,627.16 of that money in 2012, sending the remaining $31,834.15 to permanent savings.

In 2012 I saved $28,907.08
We used $23,611.66 of that money in 2013, sending the remaining $5,295.42 to permanent savings.

In 2013 I saved $24,033.60
We used $0.00 of that money in 2014, sending the full $24,033.60 to permanent savings.

In 2014 I saved $27,427.06
We used $0.00 of that money in 2015 sending the full $27,427.06 to permanent savings.

In 2015 I saved $40,000.00 and this will be the pot of money we draw from for any emergencies/irregular expenses in 2016 that we can't cash flow, before sending whatever remains to permanent savings when the year ends.

You can see from above that some years we had many unexpected expenses and most years we had few.....what we spent from the previous year's savings varied from $23,611.66 in 2012 to using $0 in 2015.
I am just thankful I DID save money because if there hadn't been that pot of money sitting in the bank in 2012, we would have had to delay or worse, put some of those expenses on a credit card!

So with 6 full years of my Savings Challenges(2009-2014) tucked away for our retirement years my total is sitting at $132,586.85.

Again when 2016 is over and everything is paid for, whatever is left from that $40K I saved in 2015 will go into permanent savings for our retirement years.
************

Now I need to settle on a savings goal amount for 2016.
Since we actually saved $40K in 2015(without the bonus $), I think I'll keep the goal at that level for 2016.

$40K is possibly doable for a second year, given our income level, but it's not a given.  If I keep my frugal nose to the grindstone and no big expenses wallop us this year we could make that number again.

$40K averages out to saving $3,333.33 per month.

Now how do I plan to get to this goal?

I'll remain frugal in my spending, keeping our living expenses as low as possible.

* We'll keep food spending in check.
* Utility bills will be monitored and usage adjusted if it gets too high.
* Gift giving costs and Christmas spending will be tracked.
* We don't foresee any larger car bills this year(as 2 of the 3 cars are newish), our housing is basically sound and HVAC systems are running well so those expenses shouldn't be a factor in 2016, just gas for cars and regular maintenance on cars and house systems.
* Entertainment will be sought out that is inexpensive or free.
* Travel will be done on the cheap if possible.
* Clothing spending will be low this year.  Last year much of College Boy's wardrobe was replaced and I also bought clothes for the Daughter but those costs won't be duplicated in 2016.  I'll try to do some sewing when I need clothing items replaced and Hubs is good to go with his wardrobe.

Items that may hijack my saving goal--
* We will have some extra expenses in 2016 with home repairs(getting things ready to sell in a couple of years).
* Hubs current medical issue with no resolution in sight yet, so the medical co-pays are a wild card in the spending plan.  Also any unforeseen medical issues that may crop up during the year.
* 1 child still in college and dependent on us and another child still on our medical insurance will mean higher spending than if we didn't have dependents at this point in our lives.

So who wants to play along and save some of their income in 2016?
Figure out what you can reasonably live on and put the rest away for your retirement....or if you still have debt(and why do you still have debt at this point in your life?!?)put something extra this year toward that goal and get yourself DEBT-FREE and/or MORTGAGE-FREE before you retire.

Set whatever goal feels right for your life.  Experts have said that people who set goals do better with their money overall.  Set a goal to keep yourself accountable.  Better yet, post a goal on your blog or in a community forum online and let other people's eyes help keep you more accountable.  8-)

Yah, it might not be fun to track your expenses but if you don't know where your money is going(and with most folks the money DOES GO!)how can you know if you keep any and how much you keep?

Tell us your savings goal for this year and how you plan to go about achieving that number.


Sluggy