In the past, John and I have been great at saving. John always got paid on the 15th and 30th, so we had the money set-up to automatically transfer on those days. This system of ‘paying ourselves first’ worked great for years.
Last year, my husband’s company changed their pay schedule to biweekly. This made it impossible to do the automatic transfers on the 15th and 30th, so I had to do it manually. It also lowered the amount of each check, because he was receiving more checks per year (26 vs the previous 24). After this change, I fell out of the habit of prioritizing savings. I think part of the problem was that we ended up paying lots of extra expenses last year. We had a baby, we bought new bedroom furniture for our boys, we paid off our house, we went on a vacation to California, etc. With all that upheaval, it was hard to maintain order in our financial life.
Before I could address the issue of not saving enough, my husband’s pay changed again. Instead of being paid hourly, he went to salary. This was the biggest change we’ve experienced yet. We had grown accustomed to John having lots of overtime hours and scheduled bonuses. Suddenly that extra money was gone. At first, this change felt devastating. It was even harder to save, because he was bringing home less money.
It’s not all doom and gloom. John no longer works 60 hours per week. He is more available for me and the kids. He’s home for dinner every night. It’s been great getting to spend more time together, without his work always threatening to pull him away. So if given the opportunity, would I want to go back to our old way of life? No, I don’t think so. We can make this work. We just have to figure out a new normal.
In the past, we always saved before doing anything else with our money. I want to get back to that model. We recently upped our HSA contribution to $500 per month. This might seem high, but with our never-ending orthodontic and speech therapy bills, this barely covers paying our monthly expenses. John also upped his 401K contribution from 6% to 9%. As I mentioned in another post, we recently opened 2 IRAs. We plan on trying to contribute $500 per month ($250 per account). In addition to this, I want to prioritize saving money in our personal savings account. I like having money on hand, and since paying off our mortgage, I have been discontent with our savings account. I want to have options, and I do not like feeling stuck in certain situations because of our finances.
All of this to say, I am going change our current personal savings situation. Instead of saving whatever is leftover at the end of the pay period, I am going to start saving first. I don’t want to go overboard and end up transferring too much, so I plan to start small. After reviewing our expenses, I think we can comfortably save $250 per check ($500 per month). I think this goal is achievable, and I am excited to have a new financial goal to work toward.