Saturday 7 March 2009

Moving money

Since I decided that I was going to pay just the minimums + 15% on each of my debts, I've adjusted my auto-savings accordingly. I currently have six accounts at ING: EF, vet, travel, car, house & mad money that get auto-paid every two weeks. I've messed with these before (and I probably do it too often, actually), but today, with the help of the handy dandy on-line "goal getter," I have set actual goal limits on my accounts. This increases my savings to $1200 a month from the current $550.

Emergency Fund - $1500 (goal reached: March 25)
Mad Money - $750 (goal reached: May 4, 2009)
Travel - $1000 (goal reached: Nov 30, 2009)
Car - $1000 (goal reached: June 29, 2009)
House - $1000 (goal reached July 27, 2009)
Vet - $1000 (goal reached: June 29, 2009)

My plan at the end of March is to stop saving to the Emerg Fund. I really think that $1500, for me, is sufficient for now. Once that $200 is available, I can leave the rest of the accounts as they are, add a little to each pot to reach my goals faster OR (and this is probably the best idea) attack my debt, as it's just gone up by $2,121.21 which I now owe in taxes. **Sigh**

Hmm. I also REALLY need to get a self-managed RRSP, so I can transfer 10% to that as well. I've not contributed anything since I moved my RRSP at the end of January and I need to get on top of that again...that would explain the 'extra' cash in my bank account each payday. Ahem...

This means the Magic Jars are even more important and necessary to these plans. Now that I actually understand the way they work (this took watching of several seasons of TDDUP to, if you will pardon the pun, have the penny drop) and we have our own mini-version of the Budget Binder in the Gail Planner, this shouldn be relatively painless to keep on top of. I have decided to take out two weeks worth of jar money at once (saves me dumb bank fees). It's surprising how quickly the funds in the jars build up! I'm doing my best to take lunches to work everyday, not use my debit card (1x since March 1), use my gift card at Tim Horton's (won a donut and another coffee! Woot!!) and have spent very little cash in general, which I'm really pleased about.

I spoke with my mum today, too, and as it's my birthday shortly she was asking if there was anything in particular I'd like. Like Christmas, I couldn't think of anything specific, so once again she's going to give me some money, which...yay!

Now I'm off to make muffins so I have snacks for work and another pot of the yummy oatmeal I made last week.

4 comments:

The Asian Pear said...

wow. that's a big jump! good luck with the goals. :)

Sharon S said...

Hi there-good going on those savings jars, its a great system which seems to be working very well for you! Have a lovely weekend!

Canadian Saver said...

Sounds like a nice plan! Good luck!

I should try jars too....

Saver Queen said...

how do you like using the gail planner? i still haven't found a way to use it really consistently. i'm not sure if i should use it to keep track of my spending, or use it as a day planner!