Victory 1: A steadily growing buffer
I balanced my checkbook last night, and as I was looking through our bank statement, I noticed something: for the first time since we moved to Colorado, we started and ended the month with over 1,000 in our bank account.
What that means is that we are sticking to our budget and spending less than we earn.
What that means is that we are almost 1/3 of the way toward having a buffer big enough to pay this month’s expenses with last month’s money, and idea I got from my budgeting software, YNAB. (For more details on how and why that’s a good idea, check out a post I wrote on the topic at EducationCents.org.)
Our monthly Needs (bills and other necessary expenses) are right around $2,800.
Our Wants come to around $350.
Our Savings come to around $650.
That means that, in order to pay our monthly expenses out of last month’s money, we need to have approximately $3,800 in the bank at the end of every month.
A healthy $1,000 plus (I think it was $1,199) is a great start, and it envigorates me
Victory 2: A quickly growing Emergency Fund
Due to some careful saving, and conscientious spending, we were able to put almost $300 toward building our emergency fund in the first part of the month, instead of just the $200 I had budgeted.
That means we’re ahead of schedule, and should have a full $1,000 in our emergency fund by the middle of March, instead of the beginning of April.
And that means that we’ll be able to begin paying off the $2,000 we recently put on our credit card even sooner.
*does a happy dance*
What victories have you celebrated recently? Budgeting or otherwise, I’d love to hear about them.
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