Checking In With My Savings Plan: September Edition

In September, I received $9,628.65 in freelance payments. Here’s what I put in my sub-savings accounts:

Taxes got 22 percent, or $2,118.30.

Debt got 20 percent, or $1925.43.

Savings got 10 percent, or $962.87.

That left $4,622.05 for my checking account. It also meant that, after subtracting this weekend’s spending, I’m beginning the remainder of October with a checking account balance of $1,217.55.

This month marks a tipping point for me, financially. For starters, I’ll be debt-free by the end of it; as you might remember if you follow our monthly debt check-ins, I only have $762.54 of credit card debt left to go before all of my debt is gone.

Let’s Throw Some Money at Our Problems: September 2016 Check-In

I could pay that $762.54 off right now, but I’m not doing it because I want to hang on to the other tipping point: I have a checking account balance large enough that I won’t have to dip into my savings before my next big check comes (and then pay my savings back, plus the 10 percent I add to my savings from each check, on the day the check arrives).

I almost have a checking account balance large enough to pay the entire month’s overhead expenses, which is what YNAB wants all of us to have, for those of us who are YNAB people. (I’m not—I use Mint—but I got to research and test YNAB for The Simple Dollar.) We stop living from paycheck to paycheck, as the theory goes, when we can pay this month’s expenses on last month’s earnings.

But it’s important to note that I didn’t get to this point by being super-frugal, although I am reasonably frugal in many situations.

I got to this point by earning more money.

Later this week I’ll tell you what I hope to do with it.

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