I was inspired to start this blog by Jen Tobin and her blog at www.savingitall.wordpress.com. She tells her adventures of saving money for her daughters future schooling and saves money in many ways from a 401K to digging bottles & cans out of random trash cans to recycle them for cash.
I have been doing pretty well saving money the last few years mainly be sticking to my very strict obsessive schedule and I hope this blog can show you that its possible to save money even if you don't have a ton to begin with. In the interest of not disclosing everything I will use a base number of zero for the year and I will just document what I save each week (if I keep posting on here). My plan is to try and post on Fridays, but today is Monday January 7th so I'm giving you a brief introduction and I will fill you in on last weeks money going-ons.
So I have a system based on a normal 4 paycheck month. The 1st paycheck is deposited into my regular checking account and used for gas, food, records, comic books, movies and whatever else I want to do in a month. I also deposit $20 per week from my regular checking account into my 'vacation savings' account for an eventual vacation. The 2nd & 3rd paychecks of the month are deposited into my 'mortgage' checking account which I use only to pay the mortgage. The 4th paycheck of the month is split into 3-4 accounts each month. Usually I deposit $25 into an account of saved money for potential vet bills for my 12 year old 20 pound cat named Beetus. $50 is deposited into an account for an outstanding interest free loan that I pay down by about $800 per year. The remainder of that 4th paycheck is then divided in half and split between my money market account and what I call my 'car' account. The money market is what I consider to be my main savings. The goal is for money to go in and never come back out! The car account is money I save in case I need to have a repair done to my car or to eventually use when I need, or give into the want for, a new car. Budgeting money for a car when you have no car payment may seem silly, but it has saved me when I needed a new windshield and 4 tires before I could get an inspection sticker!
I want to say that I started the year with credit card debt of about $1300 from Christmas and a few other things. This is the highest credit card bill I have carried and paid interest on in years. I use my Discover card for many things to earn the 'cash back bonus', but I usually pay the bill off each month. That did not happen prior to the new year and my goal is to not use any previously saved money to pay off the bill.
The paycheck that I got on Friday January 4th was for $807.21. After I deposited it at the bank I did my weekly transfer adding $20 to my vacation fund and I made a $400 payment on my Discover bill lowering it to under $1000, but I will have to use it for gas and a few other things over the next month. I also had $50.59 taken from my check and put into my 401K, pre-tax of course.
Ok... so my current total for 2013 so far is a whopping $20 in my vacation fund and $50.59 in my 401K
Hopefully if this goes as planned I will see you this coming Friday and each Friday following with brief updates on what money goes where.
Feel free to comment with your own stories of saving and spending!
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