Recently Josh was telling me about one of the guys from another branch of his company. He got hurt and was out of work for several weeks. He had $17,000 in his savings account. And thank goodness for it. He ended up needing every penny. Had he not had that emergency fund he could have lost his house, vehicles, etc.
It got me thinking. Currently we only have a couple thousand dollars in savings. If Josh were to be out of work for a month we'd barely scrape by on that.
What if had to be out of work longer than that? Yes, I'd go out and apply for jobs but I wouldn't make much. Definitely not enough to cover our monthly expenses.
We need a plan.
We need a savings.
We need a budget.
So we're doing it. It's usually I make out the budget and Josh is like, "eh..." and so then I'm like, "eh..." But this time we're both all in.
Other than our mortgage, we have no debt. No credit cards, no car payments. I'm thankful for that because we can get right to saving without having to pay off debt first.
Our first goal is to save about $15,000. Seeing that huge number is freaking me out but I'm going to stay positive. It's totally possible. It's just going to take some time. Probably two years. Could be a little more. I'm sure if we were super hard core and only ate beans and rice for meals we could save a lot faster, but I really like food. Lots of food.
It's only been 3 weeks but we've already saved over $500. For a one income family, I feel this is pretty good.
I'm excited to finally, finally be making wise choices with our money. I'm that girl that kicks herself over and over for poor decisions and I definitely do when it comes to money. We've been extremely blessed by Josh's income and I've been such a bad steward of that money. It's time to change that.
My kids are definitely driving me. How can I teach them about money when I don't take care of my own?
Changes are being made. I'll share more about those tomorrow.
Do you budget? Do you not?
If you or your spouse were out of work for several months, do you have a savings plan?
4 comments:
I have a budget. Somewhat-kinda-sorta stick by it. Not nearly enough if something were to happen.
I get so stoked about this when I listen to Dave Ramsey, he is totally awesome and can help you get motivated and get a real plan in place. Total Money makeover, you might find his radio program on a talk radio or maybe you tube?? It is a proven=to-work kinda thing. The thing is, you have to stick with it just like anything else.
Good luck, we have to very soon get serious about this.
I so need to get on board!!!
We have a budget, but I'm aware of how much we spend on eating out. We waste a ton of money every month on that. But our biggest expense is definitely school for the kids. Preschool. I don't even want to say how much we spend but if you google New York City preschool tuition you will be horrified. I can't wait til they're in public school. I have no idea what we'll do with all that "extra" money. Probably eat out more often! Just kidding!
Ah. The budget. MrC and I have a budget. But we're not very good at sticking to it. Money goes into savings every pay period but it's not always the money that should be going in there.
I think they say that you should have 3 months worth of salary. Or was it 6 months?
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