A while back, I read the Automatic Millionaire and it inspired me to put my savings on auto pilot. It is a simple idea, but it's been working out great for us.
I was worried that the checking account would dip or we somehow wouldn't be able to keep up with the aggressive saving strategy I had set up for us, but so far it is working well.
I originally earmarked:
$500 a month to online savings act.
$175 a month to 529 plan
$360 a month to brokerage act
$325 a month to hubby's Roth
I recently upped it to
$600 a month to online savings
$200 a month to 529 plan
and added an additional $100 a month to my student loan payment. (On top of the $293 I already pay).
I've also managed to put more into the savings account than I had originally intended each month, so it seems that $600 has become the minimum saved, rather than the total.
If you had told me 6 months ago that I'd be able to put this much away a month, I would have told you you were crazy. Especially since I gave up my full-time income for freelance and we have since become a one and a half income family.
It's amazing what you can do if you just take the plunge and stop talking yourself out of it.
The end result of all this is that we are more than halfway to meeting our 2008 savings goals, and it's only (almost) May.
We have put $10,685 into various savings and investments. Our goal for 2008 was to sock away $18,600. So less than $8,000 to go.
This really makes me wonder what we were spending all of our money on before!
2008 savings goals
April 30th, 2008 at 06:46 pm
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I didn't think we could come up with that much to save every month either, but once we really set our minds to it, the money just followed...
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