Gotta Save Dat Money | Update #2

Hey Hey Everyone!

It’s been exactly a week since I last wrote about saving money with the bingo 52 week challenge. I have been having so much fun with the bingo one rather than the regular 52 week challenge. But really, who doesn’t like coloring? I think that’s the “fun” part about doing the bingo style challenge; you get to color it in! Yes, my inner child likes to come out from time to time.

A little off topic but aren’t my mom’s Valentine’s day decorations cute! I love this sign.

Back on track. So this week I have managed to mark off quite a few squares. If you remember last weeks jar, I didn’t have many marked off at all. [sad jar]

Yep, I had a whopping 3 squares marked off. This week I have managed to mark off:
1-10
&
11, 14, 20

That’s quite a bit! That’s $253 that I’ve saved since starting this year! Whew! This is going to be used toward getting a new motor for my car. [eeee, can’t wait!]

If you’re looking for an easy way to save money, then this is it! It’s also a great way to get kids started on the importance of saving money. Of course, it’s a little hard for a kid to come up with $50 at one time but you can always turn the bingo challenge into a penny challenge and have the child put in a penny for week 1, then 2 for the second week and so on.

I know from personal experience that I would have loved it had my parents taught me how to start saving money at a young age. I know when it’s my time to be a parent, I’ll teach my kids about saving money so they’ll have a good start on their future.

If you’re a little worried about starting the bingo challenge and you’re sitting there thinking, “Katie makes it look easy but I can’t spare a lot of money each week”. Well, you don’t have to do weekly, you can always put in as much money as you want whenever you want. That’s the joy about doing the bingo version versus the regular 52 week challenge. On that one you have deadlines to meet for each amount. I love the bingo style because there’s no time frame. You simply put in the amount you can spare whenever you can spare it. For me, I usually have a week or two out of the month that I actually have money so I’ll plan out how much I want to put in the jar because you know, once it goes in, that means no touchy touchy! I personally like to try to knock out the bigger amounts when I can but sometimes I only have $15 and that’s okay. You do what you can. 

If you have any questions regarding the Bingo 52 week challenge, please leave a comment below and I will answer it promptly! If you’re interested in printing out my version of the bingo square, click here.

I hope you all enjoyed my post and as always, have a great rest of your week!

Now get to saving!

Xoxo Katie

Gotta Save Dat Money | Update

Happy Wednesday Everyone!! I know a few weeks ago I spoke about doing the 52 week money challenge. You can find the blog post here. I was already planning ahead with it and had almost all of March saved for. Then an emergency came up and I had to take from the jar, sadly. Then I decided, why don’t I just do the bingo style that Danielle over at She Makes Cents came up with. 

Basically all you do is fill in the square with the amount of money you put in the jar. I haven’t been doing this weekly but more of a when I have money type of thing. Ha! When I went to print Danielle’s version off her blog, it was a little too light and pixel’d. I’m sure I could have emailed her and gotten a better copy of it for mine but I decided to revamp it for my own use. I made mine a little more bold and bigger letters.

Here it is if you’d like to use it!

I still kept the amounts the same as hers and hope to have this filled up by the end of the year if not sooner.

Here is the progress on my jar.

I have the 52, 51 and 50 squares colored in. That means I have saved $153 so far. I want to say that at the end of it you’ll have over $1900 in your jar (if you do the bonus squares). I’m hoping that next week I will have a couple other squares marked off. My strategy is to start with the bigger dollar amounts and then work my way up to the $1 and $10 squares vs trying to do the easy ones first and saving the harder amounts for later in the year.

Have you started the challenge to save money this year? Let me know how it’s going in a comment below! I’d love to hear from you!

Have a great Wednesday

*side note: Nardi (my mini dachshund) is passed out on my desk in front of me while I’m typing this. He he.

Gotta Save Dat Money >> 52 Week Challenge

Hi Ya’ll!!

Been quite a long time since I last wrote but I wanted to discuss the new year with everyone. New Year usually means new resolutions and things to change about yourself. At the beginning of this year I started the 52 week challenge. It’s a money savings challenge to help with what else . . . saving money! I was able to make it to April before having an emergency come up and having to withdraw from the jar. This time I’m starting fresh and I plan on making it till the end of the year and hitting that lovely savings total at the end of December.

Not sure what the 52 week challenge is?

It’s simple. You just add $1 each week. Week 1 you put $1 in the jar. Week 2, you put $2 in the jar and so on till the end of December where you will have saved $1,378! If you want to read more on my first time trying this out. You can check out my blog post here.

Now since I have only been doing photography as my income, it’s a little hard for me to put away each week. So, I started the challenge a little early. I figure while I have some extra cash, I might as well start putting it in the jar that way I’m not scrambling between photoshoots to get money for the jar.

Let me know if you’re going to start the challenge too! Also, if you have any money saving tips that work for you, comment below and let me know!

& if you find yourself bored reading this post, go check out my photography page and “like” it.

 

The Struggle is Real

Ever find yourself running low on cash and wondering where it’s all going? Well most likely, you aren’t budgeting and money is going into stupid things instead of the really important things such as: Rent, Car Insurance, Bills (general). I fall victim of getting paid and then not knowing where my money went a few weeks later. When you look at it, we make a decent amount of money for the most part. We’re not rich but we’re not living off minimum wage either. There are days I will look at what we make and add up mine and Steven’s incomes and think , “Holy crap! We have this much money!” and then at the end of the month it’s more like, “Where did all that money go!”. Bills only take up about $1100 of what we make. So what’s happening to the rest of our income? Well, thanks to this lovely lady over at Thirty Handmade Days, she’s posted a great budget planner for everyone to print out. It helps you keep track of what you’re spending on bills, groceries and extra expenses for the month. There’s also a grocery list available as well as a monthly meal plan.

 

Over the years I’d say I’ve been really frugal with my money spending. I’m not the type of woman to go out shopping everyday and buy purses and jewelry that I will not use or wear. I tend to hold onto what money I have for as long as I can. I do fail at holding onto my money when it comes to going out to eat. I think most of you feel the same. You get home late from work and you don’t have anything in your kitchen to cook and are too lazy to go to the grocery store and then come home and cook . . .so we just go out and get the closest fast food we can and deal with it. Yup, happens to us all at some point. I’ve decided that this year, I’m going to change that! I’m going to crack down and start making more and more meals at home and saving the hubby and me some money.

My reasons for saving money: 

1. I’m saving money….duh! more money more money!
2. I dream to own a house one day
3. I want to have my wedding in California
4. Emergency back up for vet bills and medical bills
5. Emergency back up for car issues

With a new year comes new goals. My goal for the year is to start putting more and more money into my savings account to have for emergencies. I also plan to keep a jar of coins (hidden from the hubby since he likes to dip into it too much) and use that toward a house or vice versus. Either way, I want to start saving money. I’m tired of it getting down to the end of the month and having to pay bills and something like a vet bill keeping me from getting my cat’s medical issues taken care of. Hopefully I can stick with this and get a good chunk of money set aside by the end of the year.

My savings goal: reach $1200 by the end of the year

 – – – – If you have any money saving tips, please feel free to leave a comment below and let me know what works for you! – – – –

Name(required)

Email(required)

Website

Comment(required)

Submit

Δ