Received $40 bank interest for the month of October.
Snowflakes to investments:
Redeemed $25 credit card rewards (cash back) from our gas/grocery card.
Redeemed $80 cash back on Citi card.
Redeemed $10 cash back on Visa/dining card.
{These last two were much higher than usual due to vacation expenses}.
Other snowflakes to investments:
--$12 rounding (gets us to $3k)
--$ 25 Ting credits (no cell bill this month)
**This is the final free month since we've run through our credits**
Savings (From paychecks):
+$200 to investments
+$300 to cash
+$900 to IRAs
Short-Term Savings (for non-monthly expenses within the year):
+$1,300 to cash
- $150 Auto registration renewal
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A little commentary on our savings goals:
With dh working, I expect to increase our savings rate roughly from 30% to 40%. But I suppose we will work through that next year.
IRAs: I just happen to expect another $50 credit card reward to my ROTH and so we will get exactly to $11k max this year. It usually doesn't work out quite that perfect. I usually try to get close and just top it off end of year.
I did see that IRA limits are unchanged for 2016 so this goal will remain the same for 2016.
Investments: I am thinking of abandoning this goal. Not in a bad way though. I had intended to invest $7,500 this year.
I've yet to fund $1,400-ish from my OT. Sure we've had a splurge-y year and maybe that is a lot of it, but we have also had a very charitable year (by our own standards). I am thinking of letting this go since we have given about this much to charity. & I definitely foresee charity being a higher focus next year with dh working. For this year, we just knew a lot of people suffering a lot of hardships. A lot of stuff came up that we felt compelled to give cash to. I know next year we will probably have more means AND also switching to more cash giving as we have less time to donate. (We've been infinitely more focused on donating *time* since having kids - with lots of time and less money, but that is starting to shift the other way - probably more 50/50 in the interim).
I was also going to invest our tax refund, estimated at $2,500. I was going to invest around 12/31, since we have the cash, and reimburse our cash when we get our tax refund in early February. I am still going to invest the refund, but I am not going to count it towards this year. I will just invest it when I get the money. I was thinking the money was really saved this year, and it's true, but I'd also rather keep it simple.
I've revised my sidebar for the $2,500 (tax refund) and we can wait and see on the other $1,400. I've still got time to scrounge it up.
October Savings
November 1st, 2015 at 03:06 pm
November 1st, 2015 at 09:29 pm 1446413395