Tallying Up My New Savings Plan: November Edition

Previously, on Nicole’s Budget: After discovering that I needed to save a lot more for freelance taxes than I had been previously saving, I set up a series of sub-savings accounts. Every Friday, I tally up all of the freelance payments I’ve received that week and put 20 percent towards taxes, 20 percent towards debt, and 10 percent into regular savings.

In November, I received $5,136.00 in freelance payments. Here’s what I put into my sub-savings acccounts:

Taxes got 20 percent, or $1027.20.

Debt also got 20 percent, or $1027.20.

Savings got 10 percent, or $514.10.

This left $2,567.50 for my checking account.

It’s always amusing when there’s some tiny calculation or rounding error that gets into these percentages. Like, this month Taxes and Debt both got 20 percent exactly, and Savings ended up with slightly over 10 percent (but not so much that I’m going to pull 50 cents out and stick it back into checking).

After my $1,800 in overhead expenses, I had roughly $767.50 in discretionary income, most of which disappeared as soon as it was earned — either for upcoming holiday expenses or upcoming JoCo Cruise expenses, both of which came due at the same time. (The $101.71 I spent on clothing this month came from a $100 birthday check that was not calculated as part of my freelance income.)

When I do the math on the rest of the year, it looks like I’ll earn $3,907 by the end of December. This means I’ll get to keep $1,953.50 after putting cash in my sub-savings accounts, and it also leaves me $153.50 in discretionary money for the month. That’s a totally non-scary number that will for sure cover all of my outstanding holiday expenses! (That’s a joke, of course. It’s going to cost $100 just to get my hair cut and give my favorite stylist a holiday bonus.)

This is why I have savings, I suppose — and why I should probably add “Holidays 2016” to my sub-savings account roster next year.

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