Was able to fund 10% to 2010. Woohoo!

Maybe 9.6%, but close enough for me.

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Background? We always put 10% gross income to retirement. Since we graduated college at age 22.

It's mostly non-negotiable. 10% to retirement. (Usually we put in more, but that is the minimum).

Then 2010 came along. We maxed our our medical deductible in both December 2009 and January 2010, with dh's brain tumor stuff. & then I got a 10% reduction in compensation around that time.

We quickly decided to put $0 to retirement in 2010. Was just a crappy year. We needed a year to just regroup.

I was not happy about it, but kind of felt it would work out. When we first had kids and neither of us was working for a time, we decided to put $0 to retirement, for the short run. In the end, we were able to put in about 12% every year since my spouse stopped working. So, I remembered back to when I had my first child, and how we were able to meet our retirement goals even when we chose to temporarily put them aside.

I didn't expect the answer to fall out of the sky, this time, but I did know that I had about 16 months to find more money for retirement, and that something would probably work out.

& so it has.

So how did we do it?

$1000 in mid 2010 - deposited into a new IRA I had to open to roll my work retirement plan into.

$3000 in December 2010. Transferred $3k from cash Efund to ROTH cash efund. Might as well not give up the contribution. This portion doubles as efund for now. I did have to be creative. But this made me feel better - at least I set 5% away in retirement accounts. Without depleting cash.

$2000 tax refund - all the medical bills gave us a nice tax refund. I was able to milk an extra $500 by depositing the refund in my regular IRA instead of a ROTH or savings. (I had kind of counted on the tax break, all along - knew this would come through. A very small return on all the medical bills).

That is $6000, and I was pretty happy with that. About 8% gross income for 2010.

I also felt so behind (another surgery - another maxed deductible 2011), that I gave up on putting more to 2010. In the past I just cram all my retirement into the last year (before April) because I want retirement to be all maxed out if some windfall comes along. Though we've had some lower income years, there is no doubt we could max (this year, last year, whatever possible) the minute dh returned to work, too. So, bigger income/windfalls are always perpetually on the horizon. We try not to give up retirement contributions, accordingly. Maxing out in more recent years - even if it took 16 months to do so.

It was probably stupid to give up on 2010, because dh and I have even talked about him returning to work this year. But after a not-so-great year financially, and being so "creative" about that 10% I think I was just DONE. I gave up. I Was tired of finding $1k here and there and not thinking I was going to do much better.

But I had a change of heart. In one of my last posts I said I may get $1300 (for taxes and piano lessons), from dh's family. Entirely unexpected. & so I start thinking I should finish funding 2010. Suddenly it seems actually doable. Max out 2010!?! Hard to believe...

I went ahead and put $500 to 2010 ROTH, which was just what i Was putting away this month in dh's ROTH. Vanguard apparently makes it really easy to switch your year designation (before April, anyway). I was able to switch last month's ROTH contribution to 2010. With the click of a button.

If I earmark next month's $500 ROTH contribution to 2010, that will get our grand total to $7500 for 2010.

10% - DONE.

I think I am done with 2010 though. Still, exhausted. Ready to move on and stop thinking about 2010.

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I know. I don't want to have to do that again. Blech!

This year I am just setting aside $700/month. Which is a little more than 10%.

Since I moved $1500 to 2010, I have to find another $1500 now. For 2011. That's the only thing. (I already had to find $1500 to max out).

I'll work it out in December, or next April. Coming up with an extra $3k is much less daunting than feeling like I could put away $0, one year ago.

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2010 was actually much better than expected. About $3k less medical bills than initially expected, plus a $1k break on our flood insurance. So, phew!

Unexpected cash is going to cash savings, for now.