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October 2, 2010

September Budget Check & Financial Goals Update

September Review
September has been a crazy month.  We are trying to adjust back to a regular schedule after being gone so much during the summer months.  I was able to stock up on flour and canned goods at the case lot sale at Smith's at the beginning of the month.  We decided to allow ourselves to go a little over budget to get some of those good deals and a few good deals at Walgreens this week.  Total we spent $121 on groceries this month.  We will try to keep next months total close to $80 to make up for it.

Looking to the Future
We are so blessed. While Daniel and I have been able to both work we have been able to really save for the future.  Both of our work schedules have been changing a lot in the last few weeks.  We are very unsure of what our income will be over the next few months, but we will save toward our goals a little bit at a time.

Since our income will be fluctuating quite a bit over the next few months, we have decided to do a month to month check up.  At the end of each month we will sit down and see how we are doing towards our big savings goal, Vet school.  We have also set small savings goals to keep us motivated and help us focus on the little improvements.

Vet school is our big savings goal, but we have several 'accounts' that we are saving toward right now.  We will make goals on saving towards them each month based on what we think we can earn.  Here are our current savings goals & percentage saved:

Current Savings Goals
Thanksgiving Trip to California - 67%
Daniels family lives in California and we will be traveling to see them this year for Thanksgiving.  We have to save the gas money to get there.
Christmas Gifts-0%
We are not big on spending a lot on gifts for ourselves.  But we are saving for a few small things and gifts for our family members.  We hope to use Amazon gift cards from Swagbucks for part of this.
Emergency  Fund- 67%
Our current emergency fund is only enough to live on for one month.  We want to boost it up to 3 months before the baby gets here.
Baby-75% & 6%
We have two funds for the baby.  One for maternity & medical expenses.  The other is to help buffer the additional expenses and needs that we might not be expecting.
Vet School-60%
We continue to save as much as possible towards vet school with the goal of aquiring as little debt as possible.

As we do our best to be self reliant and live within our means, I know that the Lord will continue to bless us.  I am so grateful for a husband that will work with me as we try to live a debt free life.
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1 comment:

  1. This is so impressive LeaDawn! Keep up the great work, if all of us could save like you two it would be a different world!

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