Focus

Okay so like said in my last post, we have a lot going on in our lives right now.  I’m trying my best to simplify things as much as possible and that includes our finances. One thing I’ve learned this year is G and I work better when we have one big goal to focus on at a time. We completely kicked our car loans ass this year, then went on a nice vacation (completely paid for) and then topped up our Emergency Fund again after having to use it in order to get our dog cancer free. Oh and did a mention we cash flowed a little under $10,000 in vet bills/pet care? (Don't barf people, we love this dog and would do anything to give her a good life after all the shit owners she's had).

Look at that smile! :P 

So what’s our focus going to be now? Retirement did cross my mind but then I had a reality check: G and I aren’t trying to achieve early retirement. A lot of blogs I read are people who have that as a goal and I used find it so frustrating because I think we weren’t saving nearly enough. I need to stop comparing myself to these people. Although it's an amazing goal to have: it's not our goal. It's personal finance after all - I need to remember that, lol.

“All wealth is accumulated with the first dollar saved”

We've started, that's what counts. I’m happy with what we are saving for our long term, $17,336 each year (yeah that's right, I did the math) comes out automatically without us even thinking about it. That is extremely substantial for our age and doesn’t include any growth and snowballs we or our employer's may add to it.

What we are actually saving for is boring, and not the greatest content to blog about but hey this is real life! With this upcoming move a lot of things are uncertain – and we would like to protect ourselves from any uncertainty by having a nice big cushion of money incase things don’t work out with my job, need to do any repairs on a new house, need to purchase any appliances or anything else that may pop up. I’d rather be safe than sorry and if we don’t need the money then we can decide which account to put it towards – but if we do, it’s there.

Right now the account sits at $5100. $5000 is our EF so really our Move account is only $100. I have $65 worth of cash to deposit from sales I made this weekend plus mileage I will get paid out for a meeting I have at work (I will find out how much that will be tomorrow). G’s paystub uploads tonight so I will be able to see if there is any OT. If there is, I can snowball that into the Moving Fund. I would love to have $1000 in the account by the end of the year. I'm pretty sure I can manage it even though it's the holiday season.

- M