Joshua and I sat down together a few nights ago and opened up a SmartyPig account. I opened one account with two savings goals - Killian’s preschool fund and our emergency fund.
I had to make initial contributions and set it up to automatically debit once a month. Even though the total tuition for Killian’s preschool would be over $4,000, I calculated that if I save $150 a month between now and the time he starts, I will have enough of a bank to supplement paying his tuition with that $150 plus my bank.
Since SmartyPig automates your contribution, I didn’t enter the full amount for my goal - I entered the amount I need by the time he starts: $2,550. SmartyPig then had me enter the date I wanted to save it by, and my initial contribution, and it calculated my monthly contribution amount, including estimated interest earned to meet my goal by that date. NICE. I knew what my monthly amount needed to look like: $150. So I ended up with a $100 initial contribution, and that worked out to $150 a month. The interest is gravy at this point.
I made this goal public, so if you know my e-mail address, you can go to SmartyPig’s website and see it, and, you know, contribute to it.
I’m just sayin’.
I also set up our emergency fund. I set the amount for a three-month fund to start, and played with the numbers and goal date until I worked it out to a monthly contribution of $100. I think, at the rate we’re going, that goal will mature in about nine years! I made this goal private.
The only possible snafu is that I set up the total monthly contribution for the account (which includes both goals) to be taken out on the 20th of the month, not realizing or understanding that since I was doing the initial contribution before that date, that both would/could be taken out. I sent SmartyPig a DM on twitter and was told I can void the transaction, so I did that. I hope this doesn’t mess up my goal too much, but I can add extra money to my account at any time.
I could probably swing the extra contribution, but between having set up both the HSA and our SmartyPig account this month, and our trip to Texas next month, I want to make sure we have enough money in our checking account.
I wanted to set up a vacation/travel fund, but I don’t know for sure that I’ll have extra money in the budget for it at this point. I still need to figure out what our final monthly income will be, and we won’t have that data until next month.
Other than that, I’m pretty proud of the progress we have made this month with some of our goals: we made our first monthly recurring HSA contribution and set up both Killian’s preschool fund and an emergency fund.
Not too shabby.
Congrats! I thought saving our emergency fund would take forever, but once we started, it was kind of addictive to see it adding up. We found ways to make it happen faster. Hopefully, that can happen for you too.
I had never heard of SmartyPig before! Thanks to you, we now have our own account!