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November 30, 2018 · Leave a Comment

How To Reach Savings Goals

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Budget· Budget Tips· Frugal Living· Printable· Saving· Ways We Save

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I’ll be honest, before we started budgeting, we had no savings.  Well, we had maybe $600 to $1,000 in a savings account, but it wasn’t anything that would realistically and responsibly get us through an emergency.  Any “emergency” we did have {like car repairs or large medical bills}, went on a credit card.  In the end, our final car repair bill was well beyond the worth of our cars, and resulted in us trading in for a shiny new car, complete with a very pricey car loan.  Sound familiar?

How To Reach Your Savings Goals

The same happened when we had expenses come around that weren’t part of our monthly expenses.  Annual expenses and quarterly bills would come from our already stressed monthly budget.  Then there were birthdays, holidays and so on.  There was no way for us to know how much money was going where.  We were just real lax about it.

It certainly wasn’t a way to go on with our finances.  Especially since we wanted to become debt free.

When we bought our house in 2014, we had some goals behind the switch.  First and foremost, we wanted to reduce our expenses.  We had a wonderful head start when we went from paying $805 in monthly rent to $500 on our mortgage.  The savings in that expense alone was enough to jump start a fire of determination, and to begin getting serious about paying off our debt.

But we needed to be accountable for not only how we were spending our money, but also how we were saving our money.  In order for that to happen, we needed to increase the amount of money in our savings accounts.

We wanted to have some realistic safety net that could cover any expense that may come up throughout the year.  Since we never had much of a savings account before, we needed a way to know how much we would save for, as well as a way to be accountable for what we were saving for.

Bottom line, we needed a concrete savings goal and a plan of action.

In order to help you reach your savings goals, I’ve decided to share with you the exact method that I use to reach our savings goals!

Know Exactly What You’re Saving For

Before we could say that we saved anything, we had to know what we were saving for.  A few of our examples included Christmas & birthday gifts, average annual medical expenses, along with any quarterly and annual bills.  Maybe you have a room that needs renovated, a savings goal for a vacation, or just saving up for a new car.  Whatever your saving up for, you need to write it down.

Have an Estimate of How Much You Need To Save

You also need to know how much you’re saving for it.  For our gifting fund, we put aside roughly $2,000 each year.  For the remainder of what we save for {medical, quarterly & annual bills}, I lump them all into our annual savings fund, which I save about $6,000 a year for.  Make sure to write all the amounts you want to be saving up for.

Time to Divide and Conquer

To make these savings goals more attainable, I break down our huge goal into smaller chunks.  Rather than state “I’m going to save $2.000 this year”, I divide our goal by the number of paychecks we have within a year, and say “I’m going to save $40 from each paycheck.

For example, Hubs is paid weekly.  If I’m saving $2,000 a year for one of our goals, I divide the total savings amount by 52, and know that I need to save $38.46 each paycheck.  By writing down “I will save $38.46 each paycheck”, I’ve taken a large sum of money and made it more attainable and within reach.  If he was paid every 2 weeks, I would adjust the savings amount and have to save $76.92 each pay period.  Realistically, I would round both of these numbers to the nearest multiple of 5 to make the numbers easier to remember, and the math much nicer.

52 Week Savings Tracker

To read more about how I reach our annual savings goals, check out my 52 week savings tracker!

Tweak Where Needed

Sometimes a savings goal was too large and would cut into our already tight monthly budget.  A few years ago, saving in our annual savings fund was one example of this.  This fund {which I still have today} I consider a lump sum sinking fund.  It contains money necessary for medical, dental and vision expenses, bills that come quarterly or annually, and so on.

Rather than going through the month with less money for our usual budget each month, I would tweak our weekly savings amount to not strain our monthly budget, but also so that I’m able to reach our savings goals.

Keep in mind, this only worked because some months we have a 5th paycheck.  That 5th paycheck is always higher than normal since benefits such as health insurance are taken out for 48 weeks out of the year.  With this check, I take our normal weekly food and household cash, and the rest of the income would be put into savings, allowing us to keep up with the savings goal over the course of the year, but not strain our budget on months with only 4 paychecks.

Make Savings A Priority

In order for any savings to occur, it needs to become a priority in your budget.  Whether you transfer the amount yourself or an automatic transfer is up to you.  No matter which way you go about it, saving money for your goals needs to be a priority and occur before any other expenses happen.

Watch Your Savings Grow

Each week, or month, continue to monitor how you’re coming on your savings goals.  While I transfer our savings each week, I prefer to update my tracker each month.  I found that if I was updating the tracker each week, two things would happen.  First, I would feel bogged down at the beginning of the year since I still had a long way to go towards the goal.  Second, once the summers came, I wouldn’t be able to keep up with updating our tracker weekly.

 

In order to help you reach your savings goals, I’ve created 3 free printables!

One is blank, you fill it in based on your savings goals.  The other two are designed to help you jump start your savings account, with a $500 goal, or a $1,000 goal, both over 6 months.  To get access to these free printables, and the rest of my resource library, simply click here!

 

So there you go!  Six simple steps to reach your savings goals!  Have any other savings tips?  I’d love to hear them in the comments below!

How To Reach Your Savings Goals

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makingcentsmatter

makingcentsmatter
Only you can determine what your financial goals a Only you can determine what your financial goals are. If that means you're adding money to your savings account, or contributing to your retirement, while you are paying off debt, then so be it!⁠
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Do what looks right for you and your personal finances.⁠
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The trick to meal planning is to make it predictab The trick to meal planning is to make it predictable. But predictable doesn't mean the same thing week to week. You could have a chicken meal, a soup meal, a pasta meal, a leftovers meal, a family favorite meal, and so on.⁠
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We always try to go with themed days, but some weeks are so hectic the theme is literally "fast". Thankfully that hasn't been the case lately.⁠
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I can only hear about my extended warranty I never I can only hear about my extended warranty I never purchased so many times. 😣⁠
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March Debt Paid numbers are in!⁠ .⁠ House: $51 March Debt Paid numbers are in!⁠
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House: $511.13⁠
Citi: $0 – this has a residual $3 in interest charges since payoff, due in April⁠
D NelNet: $100⁠
K NelNet: $100⁠
K Chase: $600⁠
Explorer: $336.27⁠
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Total Paid in 2021: $8,258.84⁠
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Extra Payment: There isn’t one this month since we were $25 away from zeroing out the budget for our February 15th monthly paycheck. That $25, and monies left from our January 15th paycheck, covered our OOP costs for Hubs’ filling. We also have some savings goals coming up that need to be met, making our debt payments a little lower for the time begin.⁠
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The battle for who can charge what tonight is abou The battle for who can charge what tonight is about to begin. 😬⁠
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My kids run off with my charger, plug it into one outlet 5 feet from where they found it like that particular outlet is the only one in this house, and then proceed to fight over who can charge their device first at night.⁠
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Then they get grumpy when it's their turn and it's not the proper input cable. #itwasmychargerfirst #dontlikeitgofindyourown⁠
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A needs his wisdom teeth taken out. I've talked a A needs his wisdom teeth taken out. I've talked a bit in our February Budget Check-In about how much of this I think we'll owe, and you can check that out on my YouTube channel if you're interested, but I wanted to say here...⁠
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To the mother with little kids struggling to get your finances in order, it will get better. I wish I could have heard those words years ago.⁠
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Nearly 10 years ago we were facing a $1,400 out-of-pocket portion for A's Phase 1 orthodontic work (I looked it up after I uploaded the video... we had a $1,400 portion).⁠
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It was a lot of money for us at the time. Our kids were 6, 2, and 3 months old. I don't think we even had $500 in savings, and I just left a part-time teaching job because it wasn't paying the part-time daycare bill, so paying our portion in full was just a dream I didn't think was achievable.⁠
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I was even stressing about the monthly $100 payments. We were so strapped. It was our breaking moment to start cutting costs and budgeting more effectively. We've learned a lot in that time period.⁠
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What we've learned is that it does no good to stress about it all the time. Life happens. All you can do is try to plan ahead, and if it's something that's unplanned, readjust. It won't always be easy, especially at first, but it will be worth it.⁠
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Nearly 10 years later, we are still paying off our debts. Student loans suck. But I see this bill as a reminder of how far we have come. Seeing a bill like this doesn't stress me out like it used to, and I know we can easily create a plan that can get it done and out of the way.⁠
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Will it delay our debt-free date more? Yes. But it's not worth stressing over. Life happens, readjust, and continue on down the path. It's called a journey for a reason.⁠
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It's almost payday! Here's how our variable budget It's almost payday! Here's how our variable budgeting categories are working out for the pay month.⁠
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Food is looking good this far into our paycheck, probably because miscellaneous - which includes eating out - took a hit with unexpected purchases. Pet is low for this time of the month, and Household is spot on.⁠
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Fuel looks like it'll be lower than last month (yay for weeks of snow days & delayed school starts), and Therapy had one more appointment than initially planned.⁠
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Garden, Dental, Medical & Propane are not included in these estimates so far because those expenses are coming from sinking funds. Once we're done with the month and review the budget, I'll move over the total amount spent from those sinking funds.⁠
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How's your paycheck budget coming along?⁠
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Automating your finances makes saving money and bu Automating your finances makes saving money and budgeting more convenient, and therefore easier on you. Out of sight, out of mind, right?⁠
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What's one thing you can automate this week to make your finances easier?⁠
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Me? I'm going to set up our sinking fund transfers to automate every payday (the 15th of every month). Our bank set up a feature on their app where we can schedule savings transfers now, and I'm going to take advantage of it!⁠
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Oh my word... our miscellaneous category has gone Oh my word... our miscellaneous category has gone a smidgen overboard this month!⁠
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I foresee a goal for March's paycheck to at out less than twice. That's where this category went awry. $99.16 of it went to eating out. 😑 Some of it was avoidable, but not all of it. Having to drive to multiple appointments in one day during snow squalls and rearranging our whole day was one of those unavoidable instances.⁠
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Tracking our expenses - much like a budget review - is vital to sticking to your budget!⁠
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#makingcentsmatter #debt #debtfreejourney #debtfreeprogress #debtfreecommunity #realbudget #budgetcategories #monthlyincome #savingmoney #savings #frugalliving #frugalblogging #budgeting #zerobasedbudget #financialgoals #personalfinance #personalfinancetips #financialfreedom #expensetracking #budgetfail
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