Where we stand!!

Inspired by Anna Newell Jones (www.andthenshesaved.com) and her story of going on a spending freeze and knocking out all of her debt (about $23,000) in just 15 months!! Just by making her life a bit more simple and frugal, she was able to pull this off!! Inspiring!! Thank you for your awesome story!!

I am at a bit of a different point in my credit/savings ordeal. The only debt (besides my house) is about $2800 in student loans. We have no credit card debt, car debt, or any other type of debt that one can think of. However, we are spending more than we would like. We eat out a bit more than we want, we buy gifts, purchase new things for the house, go to the movies often, etc...

I think all of this is adding up to us not saving near as much as we could. Also, we just purchased a new home (January 2011) and are constantly making large payments for on the latest item we need for the house. Prior to moving into our house, we had about $10,000 in savings. However, in just the past 5 months, we have spent about $20,000 on items for the house and a HUGE tax return that we owed, they include:

$6600 Down Payment
$4000 Taxes (we had to pay back $4000 on our return due to losing the new homebuyer credit)
$1100 Refridgerator
$1000 Washer & Dryer
$1500 Bedroom Furniture
$2200 Dining Room Furniture
$2000 Paint
$500 Movers
$150 Locks
$600 Blinds
$250 Patio Furniture
$300 Mower
$200 Edger and Blower
$100 Bar Chairs
$175 Hall Furniture Piece I
$250 Hall Furniture Piece II
$50 Garage Door
$20,975 TOTAL

As of July 15th, all of this spending (whether necessary or not) will put us at basically zero savings. Thus, we have to get back to a point where we have more savings. The first goal is to get to $20,000 in savings within a year, while still being able to add to our retirement funds. However, I do not think this will be as feasible and we will have to cut down on our 401K and Roth IRAs.

I am a teacher and my wife is a dietitian, so we are not pulling in the big paycheck, so I feel that $20,000 in our savings is a VERY ambitious goal to do within one year. Especially with all the spending we will continue to have on our new house.

With all that said, I am going to start blogging my way to $20,000 in the bank by July 15, 2012. After that, the goal will be to pay off the house within 5 years!!

WHY BLOG?

Well, I heard Anna Newell Jones state that her reason for blogging was that it held her accountable. I have been telling myself of wanting to save more, but the accountability part has been lacking. Hopefully this vehicle will make me more accountable and a year from now we will be looking at $20,000 in a savings account.

I will hopefully update this consistently and speak to the "tricks" and practices I am using to make this happen.

--Jason