Shaving savings

Sometimes this is how I feel paying off debt. It's hard to train yourself into new habits so it doesn't get away from you. I would love to see that big dollar sign as representing my savings, but it currently represents the debt. Although not nearly as big as some, it's still that proverbial monkey and needs to be removed from my back.

To accomplish clearing the debt this year, I've shaved my current savings as a first step. I'm planning on this only being temporary, and then boosting the savings back up to try and meet my savings goals.

My savings were (monthly):

RRSP 1: $250
TFSA: $100
CSBs: $70
RRSP 2: $50
ING: $162 (5 accounts)

Total: $632

That's actually 29% of my monthly income, so no wonder I was feeling a bit squeezed! I should be concentrating on ridding myself of debt, then focus on my savings.

So I did some online fiddling over the past couple of days and phoned my bank today to get my auto-deposits adjusted. This is what my savings will look like from here on in (monthly):

RRSP 1: $100 ($50 is min bi-weekly deposit amount)
TFSA: $50
CSBs: $70
RRSP 2: $50
ING: $70 (3 accounts)

Total: $340
Extra toward debt (monthly): $292!

$330 is 15% of my monthly pay, so this is much more in line with what I should be saving anyway. The CSBs come off my paycheque bi-weekly and I can't change the amount until next year at this point. RRSP #2 is growing slowly but surely and I think it's doing just fine as it is for the moment. ING was taking more money than I thought, so I've shaved it down by continuing to save only in my vet, travel and car funds. The planned spending and the new freezer account (was computer) will be emptied to put extra funds on the computer, so it'll be paid off by the end of the month. I couldn't bear to cut it out entirely and even this is making me a bit nervous, but I have $1600 in my EFund, and I'll be just fine.

Money should be THIS fun!