Savings Update

While we didn't meet our goal of 45% savings of our take home pay for the first 1/2 of the year we came oh so very close!! Drum roll please, .........total savings for the first 6 months of 2011 is 42%!!!!! Ya Baby!!! Today is a day of celebration but tomorrow is back to the grindstone. With summer here our expenses increase until the end of the year, vacations, higher utility bills, mini getaways and of course the holiday's in the fall and winter. Our goal for the second 1/2 of the year is to save 35%.

This week I have to revamp our weekly spending, if you haven't noticed Rambo man's gas bill and extras have not been figured in this year's weekly budget. When he is on a project he has a company truck so all expenses are paid, now that he is back home he will be driving his own truck and paying for the gas, he will also need a little spend money or he tends to hit the ATM a little to often or worse yet pulls out the American Express card UGHHHH. Trips to the ice cream parlor after supper is also a vise of his that I don't squawk about to loudly, I do enjoy a dip of chocolate chip in a waffle cone myself. I need to stay focused, inspired and think twice before laying down the cash if we are going to hit our end of the year goal!!

The break down of our savings is at the end of the post, in a nut shell we have 4 savings area's. Retirement, emergency, spending savings, and mad money savings.

Retirement is of course do not touch no matter what, maybe if we are lucky we will have enough to eat on at retirement and a little leftover for bingo.

Emergency savings is for the big stuff as in loss of job, prolonged illness, house falls down that sort of thing. Our goal is to have a full 6 months of take home pay put back, for now we have enough to make ends meet for 6 months but there would be nothing extra, we do however have enough food put back that we wouldn't have to worry on that front.

Spending Savings is money that is put back that we don't need to put our hands on right now but we know the bill or expense is coming, car repair/maintenance, furniture, boat dock fee (just paid this weekend, grrr), taxes, Christmas, gutter cleaning, tree maintenance, vacations that sort of thing.

Mad money savings is for spending, when we just want to go crazy and spend for something totally not needed, fancy sewing machine and speakers for the Harley were our most recent purchases. I don't really fund this account the money is found money, coupons, rebates (I stink at that), refunds on insurance a little check from here or there. If there is no money in the account then we don't have any to spend, end of discussion.

We have 3 separate savings accounts and of course the retirement account is another animal all together. I have been keeping our spending savings and mad money savings in one account up until this week, I will be opening a separate account for the mad money, it is becoming increasingly hard not to dip where we shouldn't. We have one account from way back when, Rambo man's Navy days, I have no idea why we keep that account other than it makes him feel good and doesn't cost us a dime so I am cool with that.

Want to know how in the heck we pulled this off? Ha, stay tuned I will try and pull it all together tomorrow.

% of savings 2011

13% Retirement (Rambo's lucky number is 13)

15% Emergency Fund

14%Spending Savings

0% Mad money account