$28K Savings Challenge.....March 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 2015 I am continuing my Yearly Savings Challenge.  I am raising the Goal amount slightly to $28,000 this year, $4K more than my goal for last year.

On to the March report.....

I have posted my March End of Month $28K $AVING$ 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 $2,333.33.

I have to report that we finished up March with a good amount saved.
The extra amount we ended the month of  March with?.......$3,797.12

Income

We had $2,296.14 left over from our income after our monthly expenses were deducted.
 

Other monies received in March totaled $1,500.98.  This included interest made on non-retirement accounts, dividend checks from stocks held plus a partial refund on the money we paid out for our daughter's wisdom teeth surgery.  Also included is the 2014 Tax Refund we received.

This brought us to our gain of $3,797.12.
Since we have no debt, this goes into savings.

Outgo

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

HERE are the GOOD THINGS

 

*  Phone charges, internet and  were approximately the same as last month.
*  Water bill went down $2.04 from February's bill.
*  Credit Card bill went down $283.70 from February's bill. 
*  Gas charge card went down $37.66 from February's bill.
 

HERE are the BAD THINGS
.
*  Cash withdrawals went up $130.48 from February's withdrawals.
*  The electric bill was up $22.24 over Febuary's bill due to more heating.  Actually maybe this should be under GOOD Things since only using $22.24 more in energy in the middle of Winter is a "win".  This new efficient heating system is killing it! in terms of lowering our electricity usage.

*  We had a LOT of irregular spending too in March--we paid the sewage bill for the entire year in one chunk, additional tax was owned to the State, there were 2 small charges on store credit cards which were paid in full, and the local property taxes which was by far the largest amount paid out.I
In all there was $1809.34 in irregular bill spending this month.
 

The Food Budget costs for March are in another post, which is located HERE.  I actually came in under budget on food/toiletries for March.
 

The 2015 TOTAL.....
With 3 months accounted for, our Savings Challenge Grand Total for 2015 is $8,695.38.
That averages $2800+ a month so far and is about $500 more than we need to put away every month to reach the $28K goal for the year.

THOUGHTS going forward into April----

Irregular bills coming in April.... The only non-regular bill may be 2 dental bills as Hubs and I went to the dentist in Feb. and March so I am figuring at least one of those bills will come in during April.
There will be a cataract surgery bill(if I go with an upgrade)and we may have to foot that one instead of taking it out of the HSA fund as it's quite low after paying all those high deductibles for the year recently.

We will also be receiving an insurance bill in April for the "new- used" car we just bought.
If all the "regular" bills stay about the same as they were in March, those should amount to $1800.
Add in about $450 for the new car insurance charges and $300 or so for the dental bills and our nut in April will run about $2,500(not counting any cataract surgery costs).  April is a 3 paycheck month for us so next month's amount saved should be awesome!


With 3 months behind us we have $8,695.38 down and $19,304.62 left to save in 20015.  That breaks down into $2,144.96 per month for the next 9 months of the year. I think we can easily do this number each month.
 

 

So how was your March financially?
  

Did you spend less than the income you had in March?
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 something you wanted?
 

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 with you or commiserate with you!

Sluggy

$20K Savings Challenge......November 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, 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, 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 November report.....

I have posted my November End of Month $20K $AVING$ 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 $1,666.67.
But seeing as I hit the $20K goal in October, we'll just see how much more I can sock away in November.

I have to report that we finished up November with a nice amount.
The extra cash amount we ended the month of November with?.......$1,825.64..

Income
We had $1,764.52 left over from our income after our monthly expenses were deducted.
 

Other monies received in November totaled $61.12.  This brought us to our gain of $1825.64 for November.

At this point, any money we save until the end of 2013 is bonus and I am glad to have it! 8-))

 

Outgo

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

HERE are the GOOD THINGS

 

*  Evidently I overpaid(again!)the long distance phone last month so our bill was only $4.05 in Nov.

*  Cash withdrawals were $370 less than in Oct.
*  I didn't buy any living room furniture yet so no spending there. 

 

HERE are the BAD THINGS

 

*  I overspent on the food budget by $182.

*  The electric bill was $130 MORE than in October because of the heat being on.

*  We had pet related spending of $186 due to having to put our doggy down. 8-(
*  The credit card bill was double Oct.'s bill due to clothes spending, but mostly due to mini-vacation spending.

 

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

The 2013 TOTAL so far.....
With 11 months behind us, our Savings Grand Total for 2013 stands at $22,751.92. 
 

We surpassed our goal by $2,751 so far and have 1 more month to try to sock away some more!
 

Looking ahead for December......
 

*  Christmas happens, oh yes!, it does this month.  We are traveling during the Holiday season so there will be additional expenses for food, lodging and gas before December ends.

*  The credit card bill(with a lot of holiday shopping!)has closed as of yesterday so we will have a big expense paying it off this month(we never run a balance or pay interest on a credit card).  All those Home Improvement Gift cards I bought are on that bill too.  We will have enough cash to cover our bills this month but it will eat up much of our excess cash from paychecks, so I am not hopeful for saving much cash into the Savings Challenge in December.

 

*  Add in that the 3rd car(the one #2 Son drives)broke down last night, so we are looking at a not-yet-determined repair bill for that.  There goes more cash that might have been saved in December.

*  That living room furniture I haven't  bought yet?  It looks like it's not going to happen until sometime in 2014 now.  But I am ok with that.  It's not like we don't have awesome new inexpensive recliners to sit on instead. ;-)

 

So how was your November financially?
  

Did you spend less than the income you had in November?
Did you stay within your budget or not?
Did you pay off any debts 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