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Save, Baby, Save

July 13, 2022 Okay, so I’ll admit it. I was wrong. I’m going to eat my previous words and say that I was bitter about budget apps and that tool looks like it will be really beneficial and right in line with my personal style of organization. Pie charts, specific tags and color coding, oh my!Things I did this week to nudge me closer to my goals and made me feel great:
  • Summit’s Climbr®: I just had to sit down and put the work in up front. It wasn’t crazy intuitive to figure out how to create my own tags but once I did, I was on a roll. I went back through the last month of expenses to accurately tag everything and then looked at my cute pie chart to see how it all shook out at the end. And even though I hate them, I set up alerts to notify me when I’m getting close to going over budget in specific categories I want to reduce – dining out, pet items and my own personal miscellaneous spending. I know that it will make me think twice about if I really need that takeout or if my dogs need a 13th donut bed.
  • Automatic payments: More specifically, automatic payments to myself, aka transfer to savings. I also added another savings account dubbed my “fun fund” to start saving for future trips I have planned in addition to my current emergency fund and pet fund. I used to just try to look at what was leftover at the end of the month, but by putting money away every paycheck automatically and up front, I’ll hopefully save an extra $400-$600 a month without even thinking about it.
  • Future investments: I would love to buy a house right now but unfortunately the market is not in my favor. Instead of my money sitting in my low return savings account, I talked over with my financial coach what short term investments might be worth looking into for me until the right time comes along. I have great options and it feels good knowing I’m taking small steps towards achieving a longer-term goal.
Revamping my finances and changing my spending habits isn’t something that can happen overnight, even though my very impatient self would love for it to be that easy. Doing things in smaller, bite-sized pieces and automating bills and savings has made it easier to make my money work for me without much effort on my part. What’s something small that made you feel good this week? You might also be interested in What a ride it’s been! 2022 has been full of adventure and trying new things and I’m so excited by all the progress Project Money has given me financially... As the end of Project Money draws near, I can’t believe how far I’ve come since we started. Day to day, I always felt like I could be doing something more... How many times did my dad tell me this as a kid when I really wanted McDonald’s? How many times do I tell myself this in a week when I don’t want to cook... It’s that time of the year again when you reminisce and look back over the year and start thinking ahead to next year. Every year, I try to make a personal... Happy (belated) Thanksgiving! This year didn’t really feel like anything special since my goal was to keep it low key. I was able to make a nice dinner... One of the things, or problems, I knew about myself coming into Project Money was that I had a loose budget but I never let that stop me from doing the... I can’t believe we’re halfway through November! I feel like this entire year has just been me saying I can’t believe how time is flying. How is Thanksgiving... One of the biggest things I’ve always been interested in is investing but since I struggle with crunching numbers and finances generally overwhelm me... This week was a busy, chaotic week but a good one and we hit some big goals in this house! First, I finally paid off my last private student loan. It wasn’t...