Show me the Budget- Why we need 5 savings accounts.

It has been FOREVER since I did a little update on our 2014 goals of being debt free, and saving 15k. I thought our goals may have changed a lot since I posted the goals here. Not really, and we are actually doing really well! It only took us half of 2014 to get here! Ha-ha.

As you may know, I shouted from the roof tops all over Show me Ashley Social media that my husband was home from Afghanistan! Now, I love him to pieces, but I am going to share a little about his budget changes as they are a little more dramatic than my own. When I met this man 3 years ago, we never talked budget until we started saving for a wedding. Well his plan was to deploy to Kuwait and save a bunch of money. It worked. We moved in together after getting engaged but with dual incomes we just never really talked budget. I mean other than wedding savings. I was paying off my student loans and such but not like I should have at all.

Then we got married, he deployed – again. LOL We had good intentions to start Dave Ramsey’s program we just NEVER did it. Once I became jobless it was so hard to tell him what to do with “his” money, that he always reminded me was “our” money. Marriage. Ha-ha! I still refer to it as his money…I just run the budget . When I met him he was a very, “if I want something I will buy it, I can’t use money when I am dead” attitude.

How I didn’t run for the hills? Love. I am the queen of bargains and bulk( if it saves money). So making small changes here and there I could see he was trying when he stopped doing little things like stopping for a $2 coffee or soda on the way to work, and would take something in a mug/ or keep a 12 pack of sodas in the car for such occasions.

Flash forward to now. So MANY changes, but this is a proud moment for me. We made a little command Center and I saw this little $70 mark by his to-do list.

I thought about it, and couldn’t figure it out. I have made budgets since I moved to Missouri 3 years ago ( WHAT!?!? 3 years already… ) and I sometimes stick to them, and I some times don’t. I am ADD like that. I have begged him to make budgets with me forever. It normally evoked a really ugly mad face, a few sighs, and him sitting in silence getting angry. I couldn’t get him to even engage, and had no idea why he was so against a budget! I kept giving up, and would try again a month later or so. He kept going “ I just need multiple accounts so we can just send our money to be saved for certain things there”. I agreed. Saving for a wedding was easy. All money goes towards wedding. The end.

So that little $70 dollars, I asked him what it was for- bill, gift, etc. He nonchalantly told me he put it on the board reminding him how much “fun” money he can use for the rest of the month. (?!) I seriously wanted to start jumping and cheering, but just nodded and said “oh”. I didn’t want to freak him out. In the last year of me trying to have him follow a budget, finally participating fully!!!! Really, I didn’t want to jinx it.

So long story short things are going better. One of the biggest turnarounds for our budget and goal was creating a bunch of savings accounts end of April/last month. That sounds funny, I know but I was reading a lot of financial and penny-pinching blogs and stumbled across Capital One 360 Savings accounts. It was literally exactly what my Husband kept telling me he needed. Apparently me drawing it on a piece of paper each month “splitting” up our savings account wasn’t working for him.

We started out with a car fund, and then added two more savings accounts as things came into our life. Our couch just broke, so we will using the tax money to replace that bad boy. Note to self: A $300 dollar couch that broke twice is a bad idea.Yep, Warranty already replaced it once before …8 months after we bought it

We have been active with this since a little after he returned, and elated to see by next month we will have over $2000 dollars saved up. Now we are not behind on our goal as we have money in our regular savings account, but this is money we have less fluid access to.

Why we LOVE our Capital One 360 savings account.

• Keeping our regular checking and savings account.
• Multiple accounts for multiple goals, set up as many as you need!
• Love that you can Categorize the account and name the goal separately.
• Free transfers to our own banks checking account.
• It takes 2 days or so to transfer $, so it limits impulse buys.
• The website is set-up for ultimate savings with all sorts of tools to help us meet our goals.
• Graphs! I love all the information about our goals, how long, how much, etc. Watch our money grow!
• Way better interest rate than our bank.
• We can refer friends! We get $20 every time someone signs up with our referral link, and you get $25 for signing up too!

We had this account before we even knew we could earn referral money, but if you are thinking about opening an account we would love for you to use our link! It can be found here.

So to recap our goals:

Our Goals:

• Save 15k. – This was a little too high of a goal for us, but I am fine if this goal continues into 2015
• Set up an IRA/Roth IRA for my dear husband/Contribute to mine – Check on the setting up IRA’s for the husband.
• Save for a car. –Started!
• Set up special “big purchase” fund so we can save for the car, baby, vacation etc. – Done! Thank you multiple savings accounts.
• Do not try to “Keep up with the Jones’s.”… Better, but working on that. . .still. We tend to still talk each other into “need right now’s”.

 

So from this little lady, who was raised  listening to Dave Ramsey on the radio at night with her Dad- I am MEGA proud of us, and beaming from ear to ear.

 

Question of the day: So how are you doing on your New Year’s Resolutions/Goals? Half way through 2014, can you believe it?!