Savings Goals

Picture from Pinterest. Photo credit: The Rambling Redhead

If I made an inspiration board it would have three things on it: a car (probably a Lexus), a picture of Australia, and a kitchen like the one in the picture above. A and I want to remodel our downstairs at some point, including a kitchen remodel.  It will be a huge ordeal whenever it happens.  We want new cabinets, countertops, sink, built in pantry, appliances, and flooring. When I get really crazy I start talking about taking down walls too.  I wish we had an open floor plan.  Our guesstimate of how much we will need, without having looked into any specific costs, is $40,000. I figure we are about 8-10 years away from really making this remodel happen.

But with A and I only $8,000 away from being consumer debt free it’s hard not to day dream.  I think we will have it paid off by June 2019.  Then our mindset gets to change to savings. I would love to see my savings account grow. It’s been sitting at $1,000 for thee years.  I follow a lot of people on Instagram that their saving goal is half their income.  That seems like such an insane amount to me but I would love to be able to do it.  Recently, everyone was posting a picture of their “basic expenses”, meaning just the basics you pay to keep your house running.

I was surprised by mine.  Mine is $2,500 which is almost 63% of my take home pay. To get to a savings rate of 50%, I would either have to increase my income or decrease my expenses.  Since the expenses I have here are non-negotiable, I would have to increase my income.  I think I’m 6 months away from my next raise so that will help. I’ve thought about signing up for Rover or Wag which are dog walking services, but I don’t want to do it right now while I’m working towards this promotion since I was so tired when I worked two jobs last time.  I’ll see how I feel if I end up surviving this promotion.

When everything except the house is paid, I think I can reasonably save $1,000 per month.  I need to save $7,000 to have 3 months of living expenses set aside for emergencies. That will hopefully be done by January 2020. After that it will be go time to save up for my car, and a kitchen remodel, and a trip to Australia and who knows what else??