Can you believe we're already halfway through 2008? It's flown by for me! Here's a belated update of our 2008 financial goals.
1. Roth IRA's. I did throw an extra $200 in since my last update. This is above and beyond our automatic contributions. This brings our total contributed to $3200 so far this year.
2. New Car Fund. This account is also set up with an automatic contribution. It comes automatically out of my paycheck every two weeks. In June, I received a bonus and the $150 automatic withdrawal came from the bonus, as well. Without the bonus, we would have added $1606 to the balance of this account. The bonus brings us to a $1756 increase in the balance of this account for 2008. Our New Car Fund is invested in mutual funds, so there has been some market loss :( The good thing is that we're buying low!
3. Emergency Fund. Nothing too exciting with this account. I have added $1425 to this account so far this year. That puts us on track to easily surpass our goal of $2600 added by year end.
4. New Siding Fund. Things just keep getting more uncertain with this account. We're still not sure if we'll be painting the house or re-siding it. We did get started on other projects, though, so money will be coming OUT of this account over the next couple of months. Don't worry, money will continue to go in, as well (at least I hope so!). We have increased our balance by $2798 since the beginning of the year. We did withdraw $275 for a tree we had removed, so our gross amount added was $3073. $3000 would put us at halfway to our stretch goal of $6000.
I'm a little worried about being able to keep up this savings pace over the next couple of months. 2008 seems to be the year of gift-giving for my husband and I. This is a huge year for baby showers, bridal showers, larger-than-usual family gifts, weddings (at least nine!), and house warming presents. Since gift giving/receiving is not my love language, this has been pretty stressful for me. Luckily, I have a generous husband to help keep me from being too stingy of a gift-giver! :)
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Financial Goals 2008: Halfway Point!
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2 comments:
How are you doing the auto-withdrawal for these separate funds? Did you set this up with your bank or a 3rd party company?
First off I'm a financial n00b. Right now i'm using the inefficient system of keeping my funds in one large bucket, and just separating the different expenses out in my mind. Most of the time I simply forget and default to "are you kidding, we can't afford that!" My wife doesn't appreciate it but its good for being thrifty.
Good question!
The automatic deductions for the Roths are initiated by our brokerage and the money comes from our checking account. I use Quicken, so I have a reminder set up so that I don't forget to deduct the $250 from our checking account balance twice a month.
The deduction to our "new car fund" is initiated by my employer, comes directly out of my paycheck, and goes into a joint account at our brokerage. I don't do this for the Roths because I'm only allowed to divide my paycheck out to a maximum of two places. So I have it set up to send $150 to our brokerage account and the remainder to our checking account.
Does that make sense? Let me know if clarification is required!
My husband likes the "one large bucket" approach. He thinks my little divisions are funny. :) It works for me, though!
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