Introducing Saving on a Shoestring!

Are you like me?  Are you the type of person that needs to be energized by your goals?

I can set goals until I am blue in the face, but I often find it’s difficult to follow through on them if there is not some sort of reward at the end.

This is exactly why I am beginning this new feature called Saving on a Shoestring. Most importantly, I want to encourage you to put your savings goals in place.  Secondly, I think that motivating yourself with some type of reward is a great way to help yourself stick to your savings goals.

Here’s a general idea of our plan:

• Wes and I have set a budget in place that includes putting money aside for present and future needs.  (You can see more of what our budget looks like here.)  Thankfully, we are currently debt-free!

• We have agreed to put aside a very small percentage of our income toward a certain reward.  We feel that by rewarding ourselves  somewhere down the road, we will be even more inspired to meet our current budget.

• If we ever find ourselves struggling to meet our budget, we will of course put a hold on putting money aside for this reward.

• If we ever find extra money in our budget, we will not use it toward this reward.  It may be tempting, but we want to feel like we worked hard to reach this goal!

• It is also very important to us that this reward never gets in the way of our giving.  We have also set aside a percentage of our income toward giving.

How about you?  Would you like to join us?

My plan is to update you all at the end of each month on what percentage of our goal we have reached.  (I will post my first update on Monday which will reveal our savings goal.  Heads up: It’s so fun that it will take 2 1/2 years to reach!)

If you think that this might be something you would enjoy taking part in, then why not take some time to think about what you would like to reward yourself with?  A new cooking appliance?  A pair of shoes?  A trip?  It doesn’t have to be anything big, just something that will energize you to stick to your budget!

Then come back on Monday and leave a comment or a link sharing that you want to join us in Saving on a Shoestring!

By the way, be creative! You don’t have to even set aside a percentage of your income for this reward.  There are plenty of other ways to do so such as saving ‘free money’, putting change in a coin jar at the end of the day, or putting aside the extra money from your grocery budget at the end of the month!  (That will motivate you to clip those coupons!)

ATTENTION BLOGGERS:

• If you have a blog, then you can copy and paste the “Saving on a Shoestring” button in your post. I will have the HTML code for you on Monday.

• If you have a WordPress blog, I have even more good news.  My web designer, Charlie, from Solution Three has made the Cha-Ching Ticker (the cash register in my left sidebar) available for you to use!  If you’d like, you can opt to use it to keep track of the percentage of your savings as I plan to do!  Just e-mail me at kaleyandwes @ chachingonashoestring.com (remove spaces) and I will send you the file!