February 2018 is in the Books-Money Matters

Well I could use a few more months like February. While our paychecks have not gone up by the tremendous amounts the administration says they were going to (pennies really), my own austerity measures are having some impact. Well, austerity is a stretch as we have hardly done without anything we need, and have had splurges and regular expenses galore. My main areas of penny pinching have been in household and groceries (H&G), clothing (making do with what we all have), and meals out (saving for entertainment and not lack of planning.) We cancelled our wine club membership, which I was sad to do a bit because even though we missed over 1/2 the meet ups, we enjoyed the wine cruise in the fall and the meet-ups we did attend. Still, at $60 a month and some of the bottles of wine not to our liking, it was a sound decision. Nothing says we can't still join friends there on Friday nights for wine tastings and bring home bottles of the ones we like. 

To recap our financial goals for 2018 are below. 

Financial goals

1. Fully fund the Roth                                              $13,000
2. Once in a lifetime family vacation                        $12,000
3. College Fund                                                       $12,000
4. College and Show Choir Road Trips                   $  1,500
5. Home Upgrades                                                  $  9,000                                                                                                                                    $47,500

Annual Savings Goal          $34,500 ($47,500 priority budget-$13,000 from savings)

Cash Savings Increase      $ 1,890
Total Savings achieved      $ 2,851

Goal Balance                    $31,649

While February was a good rate of savings, around 37% of our take home, we are below average needed to meet our savings target, which should be $2,445, not counting months with a third pay check and my end of year savings kick after my 401K is fully funded. I haven't yet factored in expenses we have incurred and paid from the 2018 bugeted goals, but so far it was just our Omaha trip, which roughly cost $500. I'll do that update with April once we have the Roth updated and some trip expenses will be paid for. 

Just Wednesday night, though the expense will be paid in March, we bought our airfare for our Trip to France! We found round trip tickets under $700 a person and on an airline that hasnt cut all conveniences. I haven't bought DS's yet becasue he hasn't confimred his specifc travel schedule. His arrangments are different anyway as he'll fly from Los Angelos. Thursday I also locked in an AirBNB apartment, though we can cancel if we find a better location, price, or combination. I was starting to get worried as so many options we were looking at had no avaailblity for the weeks we were going and this particualr AirBNB host had a local referral, and all other reviews were top. It was exactly what I was hoping to find, though a tad more than I was hoping to pay. We paid 50% down, so when the credit card comes, we'll have that as well on there to pay. March and April will be interesting months to summarize. 

I had good news this week. Our contract is moving forward which means the raises for July 1 will happen, and we will get retro pay. My circumstance is a bit different as I was working temporarily out of my job from July 26th until November 15th at a much higher salary, so not sure if I will get back pay all the way back or just to November 15th when my job was made permanent. I will though get from July 1-25th for my former position. We also are set to have another increase, small but still there, July 1, and I'm eligible for a categorical increase on my new anniversary date in November. None of this will be huge increases in my take home, but coupled with careful spending, will help us towards our goals. 

We may not achieve the savings target we are hoping for. If so, it will mean tapping farther into our existing cash savings, or putting off yet another year some of the home improvment projects, or not having as big a savings cushion for college as we would like, but I'm alos not going to push our current dreams aside. I keep saying my worst case scenario is I work another month, two months, or a year past my projected retirement timeline, which will still be much earlier than most folks I know.  How did February treat you? Are you meeting your savings plans? Are you tackling any debt that has been gnawing at you? .