save $50-$100 a month

I’ve been saving at least $50 per month for six months, which was the deadline I set for marking this goal as done. So now: done! I’ll continue saving, but now I plan to save more now that my credit card debt has been taken care of, to build an emergency fund of several months’ salary, in case anything ever happens and I need to fall back on it, so I don’t fall back into the credit card debt trap.

It’s fun to watch the monthly interest accrual deposit to my money market account. First month was $0.50, the second was $0.64, the third was $0.84, and this most recent deposit I broke the dollar mark with $1.04! If my calculations are correct, next month I’ll earn like $1.45. Soon, I really will be able to afford that coffee…. :-)

I’m up to, like, a dollar sixty-two in interest! I am sooo rich!!

Someday, I hope to be able to afford a cup of coffee with my earnings… :-)

My savings that I’ve put away in my money market account – $110, so far – has earned (wait for it) ... twenty-one cents in interest! I’m riiiich! :-)

My first automatic deposit went through last week. I have officially saved $50. Since that’s more than I’ve managed to do for years, I’m feeling good about it.. :)

My money market account is open, paperwork is filled out, blah blah blah, and - I sent in my automatic ACH authorization on Wednesday. So, on the third of the month starting with July, I will automatically be saving $50/month. Plus I will manually put in whatever else I can to hopefully meet my $100/mo goal on a regular basis. - Meh. There was an error with the paperwork I mailed in, so they rejected it. So I just went online and did it all, and now my first $50 withdrawal will be next week, instead.

It’s a small thing, but I feel very accomplished. :)

I’ve got to modify this goal to a smaller amount. $10 a paycheck at first and more if I can accomplish this. I have BIG vacation plans.

I have two long-term goals I want to achieve, each of which requires a pile of cash to do.

One of them is this: When I bought my car, at age 21, I promised myself that I would drive it until it died and then, on my 40th birthday, I would buy myself a Porsche. I want to be a blue-haired little old lady who shocks all her neighbors when I grow up, and I figure a Porsche is an excellent first step to achieve that (besides, by the time I’m 60 it’ll be a classic!) The other part of the deal is that I have to pay cash for the car: it cannot be financed. Therefore, pile of cash.

The second is, I want to move to the United Kingdom. Not necessarily permanently, but I want to see what it’s like to live someplace else for a while. At least a year. And that will require some substantial amount of cash to make happen, as well.

The trouble is, that when I made the plan to buy the Porsche I had 19 years to save up what I figured would be around $70k if I wanted a new car (obviously less if I decide to go with a vintage model, but then that one will require funding of maintenance). And then somehow 8 years went by and now I’ve got 11 years to come up with $70k (or more…) and not a dime saved against it.

Likewise the UK plan (though in fairness that goal is probably only about 5 years old).

So I decided to just say “to hell with it,” and start putting money aside. $50 a month for each goal. It won’t get me to $70k in 11 years much less another pile of cash for the moving fund, but it’s a start, and it beats the hell out of $0.

I’ve opened a money-market account. The next step is to set up an automatic debit to transfer cash to it regularly, so I don’t even have to think about savings, and it never even occurs to me that that money was something I could potentially have bought something with. I am buying something with it: my future zipping down some motorway in my fabulous car, with my blue hair blowing in the wind. :)

This is terribly easy, even on budget. Just set up your account to transfer $25/week and pretend like the money is just more taxes.