One of my resolutions is to save more than I spend and hold myself accountable for every penny I spend. It really hit me a few months ago that I really dislike living paycheck to paycheck. My biggest issue with savings is when I get to a certain number, I get content and I had this mentality of “treating myself.” It’s okay to treat yourself, just not every weekend. Before I knew it, my savings were depleted. It probably happened to you too but that’s okay! We’re going to fix it!

I became really depressed and stressed, because there wasn’t any financial freedom to do what I wanted! There were so many things I wanted to do but I couldn’t because of not having the extra. I finally had enough and told Benjamin, “that’s it! We can’t live like this anymore.” With the plans and goals we have this year, a $0 savings account is out of the question. We found an aggressive savings plan on Pinterest to follow together and one to do alone. Two savings plan? Really? Yes  trust me when I say, when I added all my “unnecessary spending” for 2016, it was close to $9,000. Let that sit there. When I saw that number, I lost it.

I went on Pinterest and found several savings plan for 52 weeks and saw these two. We both have decent jobs and we’re also working on entrepreneurship moves that we can reach any one of these numbers.

Establishing a goal

These two plans are severely aggressive and it’s going to take a whole lot of sacrifice and diligence to stick with it. You can set up weekly transfers from checking to savings or add up the weekly, divide by the amount of pay period you have and set up transfers that way.

We had a long talk about it and I had another talk with my sis-in-law and auntie (and she told me to not whine, do it), that we came up with these guidelines to follow and maintain our savings goal.

Open a separate savings with no plastics attached.

Delink the account from your online banking, and off your debit/ATM cards. Call your bank if you don’t know how. This is the biggest temptation that everyone has. If you see it, you’re most likely to touch it.

Set up an automatic deposit from your paycheck, not the checking account. 

Actually you can do both, but I find the automatic set up from your direct deposit is better. I remember I had a set automatic draft to an account that I forgot about and I received my quarterly statement and found over $750! This can be treated like an extra 401-k draft or bill. Here’s a simple savings plan you can use to establish an emergency fund or anything you want.

 

 

Have a “slush account”

I’m probably telling family secrets but I’m sure you know a different word but basically a slush account is your spending money. Whatever you want to do or buy, that’s your money to play with. If you want to take a huge trip or buy a car, this is the account to use. Here’s a savings plan you can use for a slush account. Keep in mind, you can have a smaller slush account or bigger, whatever works for you.

There are several other plans on Pinterest that you can follow. Find a plan that will work for you. Also, check at the end of each month and each quarter to see where you stand. Make adjustments if needed and if the plan isn’t working, use another!    Please follow my instagram curls_with_style for monthly check ins, and a quarterly post for progress. Happy saving!