Savings...reaching one unspoken goal

I have worked very hard this month to put a little more in savings than normal. I got almost an extra 200 bucks put away.

One of my unspoken goals is to have 5000 saved. Now, this won't be my entire emergency fund, but just a start. I would like to have at least 12,000 for an emergency fund, eventually.

I opened my first online savings account with HSBC. I opened this account in the beginning of February with a 25 dollar bonus and 4.80 % interest until the end of April . This was a good way to get my feet wet and try out this whole internet banking deal. I have found that this works wonderfully for my savings account and there are many good interest rates to be found. My credit union doesn't even come close!

Next, I just recently opened an e-trade money market fund with a 50 dollar bonus and a pretty high interest rate for 90 days(which I am trying to figure out...when I signed up it was 4.something and now on their site it says 3.7). You have to do things like keep it open for 120 days and have an average monthly balance of 1000. Not bad. The more money I don't have in my credit union account the better. If I don't see it then things are great. :)

After changing my deductions so that I get more direct pay and less tax refund, I now put the difference into my HSBC account, monthly. I have to keep a certain amount in my credit union account to qualify for free bill pay...it is worth it to me.

Right now my total savings is up to: 4,529.25

I will be at 5000 next month! Baby steps!!

I've got gas issues!

Yes, we are all feeling the squeeze. I have a Jeep Liberty (which I love) and this is what I have been trying to do to save on gas:

First, I drive like a bat out of hell. I have never really tried to slow down too much, but now I am. We are taking a 3 hour trip this weekend. Normally I would drive near 90 most of the way. This time I will stay around 65. It will hurt. I can do it.
I have already mostly broken my habit of starting fast from stop lights and such.

Second, tomorrow I am going to set aside time to check my air filter and tire pressure.

Now, if I were smart I would have been tracking my MPG to see what I have been getting. I do know this. I darn near go through a tank in one week.

My goal is to try to first stretch it to 1 week + 1 day before filling up again.

Also, I am still working on the bike thing. If I could ride that one day a week then that would already lead me to meet my first goal.

Handy links:
Tips to improve your gas mileage

10 car care tips that save gas

my trouble with grocery coupons

The Sunday paper seems pretty hit or miss for me. We don't buy a lot of name brand prepackaged goods, and it seems that is what most of the coupons are for. We buy a lot of fresh meat and produce. In the frozen food section we either buy Morning Star products or Amy's products. I have never seen a coupon for either of these in the paper. I get Morning Star coupons from the checkout line. I recently wrote Amy's to tell them how much I love their stuff and they sent me plenty of coupons...even one for a free product! Most other things we buy store brand...ziploc, oatmeal, canned veggies, windex. I often get coupons for the cat food from the bag itself.

All in all, it just doesn't seem to add up in my favor. It has been a few months since I have checked...maybe I should get one this week and just see what they have to offer and compare that against my shopping list.

A good tip is to write companies whose products you enjoy. Amy's did me well. I have also gotten free sandwiches from Chick-fil-A. It never hurts to write. Next up...the dog food company. :)

State of my state...

Things are puttering along here.

I have been working with using cash for eating out. I think after doing this for two weeks I can go back to using my debit card...now that I actually KNOW what a total of 65 bucks can buy me for entertainment/eating out a week.

Purchases out of the norm for this month:
I am buying a wireless router and wireless USB connections to finally stop dragging those wires around! We trip on them and have to share the connection and for gosh sakes, I am a computer person by trade! I have been doing more side work at home...so, this will be good.

Boarding the dog. We will be boarding our loverly little girl for what will be two days. This is a much needed trip to see some best friends. I will pay 35 bucks for that.

Sports Bra. Yippe! Those things are muchly needed and very expensive. It was hard for me to purchase this...I always feel so indulgent buying something for myself.

I have still been able to plug a tiny bit of money into savings.

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I said a while back that I wanted to try and ride my bike to work. Well, I am working on it. It is about 4.5-5 miles to work. The TO work wouldn't be much of a problem, as it is mostly down hill...it's the coming back FROM work that hurts. I am going halfway and back to shappen up and make this possible. Young Guns is in training!

I hate taking care of myself

There. I said it. I am trying my hand at making myself go to all of the doctors I have skipped out on.

I finally went to the eye doctor today...after at least 3 years. I do have insurance, but I still had to pay 35 bucks for the exam. PLUS I need new glasses. Now, I am thankful for glasses. I am also glad that the doctor said I needed new ones. Maybe this eye strain will go away, but the way these frames are priced is just the funniest thing. I went into the frame room and there were 3 walls of plastic and metal frames from 79-99 bucks. They were hideous! My eye-space-thing (whatever) is kind of small and all of these were just too big! Then the other wall had glasses that were 145 and up. They, of course, were much cuter...and were also the rimless ones. I can't do those...I tried those in the past, but ended up cracking my lenses. So, off to some new place to look for more frames. You know, there aren't many accessories that you end up wearing EVERYDAY. I don't mind paying a bit more for a little bit of style. ;)

Next up- the dentist!

Take care of yourself! It is cheaper in the end to maintain yourself now.

Don't use a coupon on the first date.

Now, I am well beyond that first date, but I have always stuck to this idea. I love coupons. Looooooove. My girlfriend also loves getting a good deal when we go out.

I think we had known each other a few months before I used a coupon for dinner. We had probably gone out as "going out" 5 or 6 times. I am a frequent user of those Entertainment books and also Restaurant.com. It may not seem like it should matter, but it does! I have heard many gals, who don't mind using coupons further on in the dating process, talk in disbelief about someone's first date with so-and-so and *giggle giggle gasp* they tried to use a coupon!

We now live together and attempt to use coupons whenever we can, but if there is a nice restaurant, with no savings, that we would like to go to, we don't let that stop us! We are quit the foodies and that is one of our major enjoyments.

Some people may spend 100 dollars on a hobby a month and sometimes we would just rather put that money into trying new places.

Plus, the girlfriend is going to be starting Pastry School in July. This is research!

First of the month changes and amazon sells

I took out 45 dollars in cash. This was to fund my 25 dollar entertainment weekly budget as well as my 40 dollar eating out weekly budget. You do the math. Oops. I need to take out another 20. This is the first time I will be trying this cash enforced budgeting method. This are my two hardest areas to control, as well as my two most expensive areas.

Oh, this is also the first month that I am not overpaying on taxes as much as I used to. I used to have a much harder time saving and always claimed 0 on my taxes. I have now started claiming 1 and am putting the difference into my HSBC account.

This weekend was fairly cheap and fun. We only ate out once. This was on friday evening at our local cheap wings and cheap beer joint. We spent the rest of the evening strolling up and down the street looking at the antique car show.

Saturday we went to a free cake show in town and then took the dog out to a park and an outside event. We were tuckered and had an awesome free time! That evening we went to a friend's house for a gourmet potluck.

Sunday was cleaning up and cleaning out! We prepared the apartment for the girlfriend's moving in. We cleaned out the second bedroom that had been functioning as my study. In doing this I listed 8 books to sell on Amazon. I only listed ones that would brink me in at least 3 dollars in profit after Amazon takes their share. I have two that will hopefully bring me about 20 bucks each. All of the other books that needed to go away were taken to Half-Price Books where I got 2 bucks for the box. I had never really thought of selling my stuff on Amazon untill FearlessMoney talked about it here

I have already sold one book!

It felt good to get rid of so much.