Today H and I sat down with our new fancy budget and decided some savings allocations. This money will be directly pulled from our checking into various ING savings accounts (I love the subaccounts!).

Retirement: $300 (for now it's out of gross)

Net Pay: ~$4600

House Downpayment (Due 6/2013): $800
Car (Due 4/2012): $580
Car Insurance (Due Yearly Aug): $400
(This one will decrease next year as I save over 12 months not 4.)
H's Masters (8/10-6/12): $300

So $2080 allocated into some sort of savings!

After all of that, I will balance our budget at the end of the month and transfer out any money not spent on Needs & Wants and any extra money we earn (including H's overtime and my side projects). Basically I always try to keep a $4000 buffer in our checking account and anything above this will go out. 75% of it will go to our top savings goal (right now the house) and 25% will go into what H has deemed our "Frivolous Spending" account. This will pay for vacations, concerts, or any other extravagant thing we want to do.

Future changes to the budget will include:

- Reducing the insurance allocation next year to 12 months of savings, not 4
- Reducing H's Masters allocations once we get his financial aid (I hope!!)
- Reallocate money to save for my deferred undergrad student loans
- Hopefully reallocate money to a baby fund for after H graduates!

I just have to say, this really shows the power of planning far into the future. We can easily save towards all these goals. Even better, I've over-allocated money to these accounts so hopefully we can rollover the leftover Cash to boost other savings goals (like baby!). Snowball Savings!