Update on my New Year's Resolution: End of April

Back in January, I shared my financial resolution for this year, which is to save a crazy amount of money to create a large cash cushion. I promised a monthly update, and I’m happy to report that we saved 9% of our goal last month, and have now saved over 29% of our total goal. We’re actually a little bit behind, because 33% of the year has gone by – but I’m pleased to be so close to that mark, considering how much of a stretch our goal actually is.

How we did it:

As always, the biggest part of our savings came from paying ourselves first. The consistency of this monthly savings is the single biggest factor in our success.

We put our tax refund into savings. I do everything I can think of to reduce our tax liability, including participating in my employer’s flexible spending account and making tax-deductible charitable donations. This year, we had to pay extra tax to the state but got back about twice that from the feds, so the difference went into savings. It can be tempting to spend unexpected money like refunds, but I find that they’re an easy way to boost savings if you can resist the temptation

We snowflaked extra income into savings. This includes money I earned through Swag Bucks (when they had their PayPal sale), MySurvey, and Instant Cash Sweepstakes.

Also, I’ve adjusted the way I manage our money a bit so it’s easier to keep track of our spending and saving. I’ll write more about that in an upcoming post as part of the Ways to Make & Save Money series.

Looking ahead, my blog income tends to dip in the summer, so if you could spread the word about CFO to your friends and help me grow the blog, I’d greatly appreciate it. Thank you!