by Ashley
As if some type of reward from the heavens after finally becoming consumer debt-free, this month has been a great one financially! Hubs’ business is really on the ups and we ended up having a large chunk of money that wasn’t accounted for in our original budget, thus prompting a mid-month budget meeting to discuss what to do with our surplus! Talk about a great problem to have, right?
Again – feeling a bit like there’s some divine intervention here because basically as soon as we were trying to decide what to do with the extra money, I changed our car insurance to be paid in full for six-month chunks rather than paid monthly. There went a quick $900!
But the rest of the money I decided to split back up amongst many of my Capital One 360 savings accounts. Remember those?
Way back in the day (before I eliminated all savings in favor of trying to pay off our consumer debt ASAP), I used to put a little bit of money monthly away into several different savings accounts:
- 3-6 Month Expenses Emergency Fund
- Car Repairs/Saving For A New Car
- Girls’ Birthday
- Christmas Travel and Gifts
- Health/Dental/Vision
- Annual Fees
- Pet Expenses
- Girl’s College Savings
- Savings for 2015 Roth IRA
The savings in ALL of these categories has been pretty abysmal lately so they’ve mostly been sitting stagnant in the past several months. But starting these separate savings accounts really started the ball rolling on my debt reduction mission. Having money designated for dental appointments or car repairs saved me more than once when unexpected things popped up. And though I couldn’t find the post so I could link to it, I distinctly remember the first time I had a teeth cleaning and paid out of my dental savings account – it felt like I’d gotten a raise because suddenly I had the money sitting there and didn’t feel the pinch in my monthly budget that I otherwise would have dealt with.
I love that through Capital One 360 I’m able to easily designate savings for all of these different items. I’m a natural “splitter” (some of us group things together, some of us split them apart; I’m the latter), and my sister still teases me over how crazy she thinks it is that I have a savings just for pet-related expenses, for instance. But for me (and any other natural “splitters”), it’s been incredibly helpful to not have a single pile of money but, instead, have clearly designated pots of money for all of these different needs. If anyone is interested in opening an account with Capital One 360, maybe consider using my refer-a-friend link. It’s really been a life-saver for me, personally.
Anyway, before the unexpected surplus money, we’d already designated a nice chunk of money toward our EF. But after seeing we’d still have some extra we started throwing a little bit of money toward some of these savings categories AND we slowly started trying to build back up our “Last Month’s Income” fund so we can, hopefully, get back to living on last month’s income sooner rather than later. There’s so much peace of mind that comes with having a healthy EF, some decent savings in each of the categories above, and knowing that you’ve got a solid month of expenses in the bank (for living on last month’s income). I really want to get back into that position and we’re well on our way!
So that’s what we’re working on. I’m purposely leaving out numbers for the time being, but they’ll all be revealed in my next budget update post. Stay tuned! : )
What do you do if you have extra money at the end of the month?
Hi, I’m Ashley! Arizonan on paper, Texan at heart. Lover of running, blogging, and all things cheeeeese. Freshly 40, married mother of two, working in academia. Trying to finally (finally!) pay off that ridiculous 6-digit student loan debt!
I love putting the unexpected extra money to your neglected sinking funds. You should do a post sometime about how much you plan to save in each one. I cringe at how much we should probably be putting into a car replacement fund and never know what the right amount should be for pet expenses.
Have you looked into a 529 for the girl’s college fund? It can have benefits come tax time, and over the next 15 years, it should (hopefully) have a higher rate of return than a savings account.
I’m also a splitter! I have a spreadsheet that divides the savings accounts into different buckets. My fiance thinks I’m a little nuts, but it helps me track different goals and annual/semiannual/quarterly expenses such as car insurance and property tax.
My fiance has irregular income, so we’ve created an income stabilization fund. Basically, when he gets paid we put a chunk of his paycheck into the income stabilization fund so we have extra to pull from for those months when my regular income isn’t quite enough. Have you considered doing something similar?