2020: The Official YNAB Savings Challenge
New year, new goals! Welcome to the official YNAB savings challenge of 2020!
Everyone is welcome to join in on this challenge, regardless of the size of your goal or the date you get started.
Claim your line on the spreadsheet below, and share a summary of your savings goals in the thread. There's also a spot for your forum journal link in the spreadsheet if you'd like to share! Bookmark the spreadsheet and come back to update your progress every month throughout 2020.
2020 Official YNAB Savings Challenge Spreadsheet
The 2019 savings challenge resulted in over $1,565,000 saved and we're still seeing updates added in! That's incredible progress in just 12 months.
Let's set our sights high to start out this decade! Here's to your overwhelming success in 2020!
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Claimed Line 38. My goal is to have 10k in my savings as emergency fund this year while i am focusing on paying down my debt. I don't even want to look at my account right now because i have been using the money saved to pay off some credit cards then i will go back and use the credit card again and use the savings again to pay off the cards and so on. Now i am left with $2200 in savings and more credit card debt (huhhhhhhh what's wrong with me 🙄). Tackling both CC debt and savings.
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Line 39, here we go!
My savings goal is $10,000 this year. I have 3.5 years until my oldest goes to college, and while I won't have enough to give her a free ride, I'd like to help her. The second child is 2 years younger, so there's a lot of saving I need to do! The $10,000 includes sinking funds as well, and it's going to be VERY difficult to make this amount, but I'm going to try!
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I have a little more time now to get into details. I currently put the following into my Ally savings account every month:
College - $300
E-Fund - $200
Christmas - $150
Viacord (I still pay annual storage fees for my girls’ cord blood) - $20
Valentine’s Day - $10
Easter - $4
Car registration- $25
Halloween - $20
Pet medical - $50
Graduation - $50 (parties/pictures/etc when they’re 18)
Subscriptions - $30
Car stuff - $100
Stupid S*** - $100 (Parking/speeding tickets)
Which adds up to $855/month, which is already over $10k. But, Christmas and other $ comes out every year, so I’d like the net amount added to savings to be $10k. Would love to double college savings and also start maxing out a Roth IRA!
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Line 41
I'm the type of person that has to spend hours/days planning, researching, deciding. BUT, I'm jumping in with a $5,000 savings goal before I actually figure out what it's going to be for. If I wait to debate with myself what it really should be, it'll be October!
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Gigirg Did you end up finding what you're saving for? How did January go?
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Line 42
I want to be realistic but also have some stretch in my goals. Below is what I plan at the moment:
•rental mortgage paydown 0/15,000
•increase emergency savings 0/15,000
•camp fund 100/5000
•car replacement 0/9000i need to revisit my auto save amounts to match the above goals & I’ll have a more firm handle on what I can do when taxes are filed and I see whether we owe taxes this year. Regardless, I’m committing to saving $44k this year for the above.
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Maroon Viper It looks like your goal numbers might have been wiped on the spreadsheet! How did January go for you?
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Yesterday was payday. I set up an automatic transfer from checking to savings on the day after payday (today) for $25. Now I don't have to think about it. It will just automatically transfer to savings. I know I could leave it in checking and just assign it to savings but I don't trust myself enough yet to let it sit there knowing I could easily WAM from it. This works best for me right now.
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internettie Great idea setting up the automatic deposit. I don't trust myself either to have savings in with my checking and am following your example.
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Angel's Mom thank you and I'm glad that you'll be doing an automatic transfer also. I know for me, that knowing my limits will help me be successful.
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Took line 43. I'm doing the Debt Smackdown too and after reading the purpose of this Savings Challenge, I realized there were a lot of people doing both. I'm aiming the save for my true expenses & RRSP.
RRSP $50/biweekly = $2600
True Expenses $230/month = $2760
Annual Renewals $85/month = $1020
Vacation Fund $265/month = $3180
RESP (possibly $50/month = $600)
Total = $9560
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Purple Foal How did the first month of balancing both the savings and debt challenge go for you?
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Veronica I filled up my True Expenses in January and paid towards my RRSP. Will probably be raiding my TE's though during the strike action to avoid touching my EF & investments. Roll with the punches to weather the storm. If I didn't have such a focus on savings & staying out of debt, I'd be so screwed & like so many just going "whatever, that's what the LOC is for". Debt is not an option, I'll survive. :)
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January Check-In
I received an extra $3,178 in income in December: $2,120 in Overtime payout, $1,000 as a New Year's Eve gift, and $58 in various cash-back rewards and interest.
With a full month's salary and all that extra to budget the first month of this year, I was able to fully pre-fund a couple of my true expenses for the entire year of 2020, categories which I am not including in the savings challenge this year, AND put $3,000 towards those categories I am counting.
$3,000 saved in January, 20% of my 2020 stretch goal of $15,000.
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I'm back for my third year! This year I'm in row 45.
Last year I saved beyond my aim, however my goals frequently had to be changed due to changing personal circumstances. This year I'm hoping to stay a bit more on task, as now that I've finally earned a more steady visa for the country I live in, my future is a little more set in stone.
2020 savings goals:
Professional development: 250,000 KRW (for a total of 1,000,000 KRW continued from last year)
Apartment deposit: 2,000,000 KRW (for a total of 15,000,000 KRW)
UK and Sweden trip: 2,750,000 KRW (for a total of 5,000,000 KRW)
Emergency fund top-up: 1,500,000 KRW (for a total of 6,000,000 KRW)
Braces: 5,000,000 KRW (not yet started)
Total savings challenge goal: 11,500,000 KRW
Good luck everyone!
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Soymylk Congrats on your visa.
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I’ve joined, line 51 for me. I’ve set a goal for £20,000 for the year.
total newbie at all this, been using YNAB since March 2019, lurked around the forum a bit, so am jumping in for 2020.
Can I ask, how do you enter your YTD total, I don’t want to screw up the whole spreadsheet lol, and the formulas scare me!
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Blue Boat
Don't enter anything in the year-to-date cell. The YTD column is a formula that adds up whatever you enter in the months for 2020.
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HappyDance thank you.
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Line 52 claimed with a goal of USD6,500.
New to the saving goal but hoping to get there without life sending too many unforseen expenses my way.
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Tan Banjo (c031bfdaebb1) I hear you. it seems when one starts saving, something happens. Hope it's not the case this time. Good luck
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Tan Banjo (c031bfdaebb1)
January Check in: First 500 saved and put into an account that I have no access to unless I want to drive for 20 minutes and wait in a line for an hour. Hopefully a strong enough deterrent.
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Tan Banjo (c031bfdaebb1)
🙂 I did the same thing with my first real savings account. You do what you got to do until the discipline muscle gets strong.
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Tan Banjo (c031bfdaebb1) February Check in: managed to set aside the $500 this month🙏🏾🙏🏾. Hoping to keep the train going and not start spending where I don't already have a plan to do so.
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Tan Banjo (c031bfdaebb1) March Chek in: $500 set aside as well. Here is to steady ongoing process and achieving goals.
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Hello all, I'm doing something new this year to increase my saving potentials. My bank has an automatic withdrawal for the 52 week challenge, so I've set that up in Dec. I will also continue building up my savings for my 6 months buffer fund, investing, and my TFSA. Because I've got a huge debt to pay off this year, I'm going to start with paying $20 a month into these accounts. This amount is more than what I started off last year, as I did $10. However, the plan will be to increase to $50 as I did closer to the end of last year.
By the end of the year I will meet my first goal of my 6 month buffer fund and be actually more then half way through my second monetary goal of the fund. The first was to have 3 months bills covered, and the second goal is to enough for 6 months of bills. I won't be able to get to my third goal which will be for 2021 - that will be to have 6 month of bills covered as well as my once a year ones.
I expect when I clear my debt I will increase my payments to savings, if this is the case I will change the $20/month/account.
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52 week challenge = $1,378.00
Investing = $240
6 months =$240
TSFA =$240
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Total = $3000
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😲 Ugh...not sure what I've done!!! I've never signed up for anything like this!!! But, alas, I'm line 50!!!!
I'm starting out slow. My first goal is to have an Emergency/Buffer of $1500.
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amystylin You've started something great! ;)
Starting out slow is still a start - one step at a time!
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amystylin Congrats and welcome! Baby steps and snowflake deposits still get you moving in the right direction and they all add up.
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amystylin
I see you also have a debt-smackdown goal in 2020. I think that setting an achievable savings goal is such a smart thing to do. Set yourself up for some strategic wins and knock the year out of the park.
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amystylin You did incredibly well toward your goal in January!
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I upped my savings goal to $15,000. It will be a tight squeeze, but now I will be putting at least $1225 into savings every month (unless something happens).
January check-in: $1558.50, which puts me at 10.39% of my goal
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I've got my line claimed! I'm doing big, hairy, audacious goals here. I suppose I'll adjust if this ends up not working out for me, but here goes:
Emergency: $250/month ($3000 for this year)
Retirement: $740/month ($8880 in year)
Christmas/gifts sinking fund: $50/month ($600 in year)
HSA: $295.83/month ($3550 in year)
Vacation: $166.67/month ($2000 in year)
Instrument: $800 in the year, if I can manage it after all the aforementioned goals
Emergency: $0.00/$3,000
Retirement: $0.00/$8,880
Christmas/gifts: $0.00/$600
HSA: $0.00/$3,550
Vacation: $0.00/$2,000
Instrument: $0.00/$800
Total: $0.00/$18,830 -
Line 54 claimed.
I've literally never "saved" before in my life.... We started using YNAB in late August, 2019, and wiped out all of our credit card debt (about $10,000). We really cracked down to do that, and I don't think it's a sustainable way of life long term. And we still have tons of debt to go (student loans and mortgage), but I also want to start saving. We'll have to start in Feb though, because we just finished paying off the CC's this month. So, here goes nothin'!
Emergency Fund Savings = $8,250
New Car Savings = $8,250
Vacation Savings = $5,500
Gifts Savings = $1,000
Education Savings = $1,000
Misc Savings = $1,000
TOTAL SAVINGS GOAL = $25,000
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J. Wellington Wimpy Your February so far is incredible!
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Veronica Thank you! It's all our tax returns, which was really unexpected. Last year we owed $5,000. We really didn't want to owe again this year, so we modified our w4's for all of last year, and apparently overdid it haha. Our actual "savings" for the month of Feb is $2,300, which I just funded out today and will be adding to the spreadsheet shortly. :)
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J. Wellington Wimpy I think I need to change this up; I've made some alterations to my savings categories in YNAB, and am getting too confused when I need to spend from some of the categories. I'm going to make this much more "generic" here, and just say that I plan to save $2,000 per month.
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ID 56 is mine :)
My goal is set to $8,430 right now for different savings (Emergency, Gifts, Medical).
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Claimed line 57 :) Not sure if $15,000 is unrealistic but we shall find out!
Saving for:
Emergency fund: $5000
Vacation: $3000
TFSA: $7000Best of luck to everyone!
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Comming late this year after discovering YNAB:
This year is a bit but important year for me, closing the gap with my long distant girlfriend in September (hopefully if her visa application is approved). I will take care of 100% of our spending until she graduate so YNAB will be my savior. Also I'm very grateful of my parent allowing her to stay home so that I can save up until I'm ready, I can save up about 1 500,00€/month effortless sadly I blew up my last 3 months of salary...
- University fees: 0,00€/2 300,00€
- Queen Size bed: 0,00€/500,00€
- Trip to Vietnam (No hostel required): 0,00€/2 000,00€
- Apartment deposit : 0,00€/1 200,00€
I'll post an update in September as it's my due date!
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Question for those of you with "experience" saving...
I have a few things that I am needing to save for, such as...
Emergency Fund $1500
Car Repairs $1000
Vacation $????
Do you save for ONE specifically until it is fully funded or do you contribute to all or some each month? And why?
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amystylin I think seeing at least a little progress on all of them simultaneously helps build momentum, and you can always move money between categories if you need to (we call that Rule 3: Roll with the Punches).
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amystylin
I've done both approaches, so I can share a bit.
First, you need to recognize that all roads lead to Rome. With a monthly savings rate of X, it takes you the next 12 months to get to the target of 12X in all target categories. Nothing changes that timing. Whether you fully fund categories one after the other or sprinkle fund all categories over the course of 2020, you get the same result: 12X in 12 months. However, I did find there was both a psychological win and logistical benefit of focusing on filling some priority categories to their max as quickly as possible, even if it meant not funding others.
I started 2017 in a bit of a financially vulnerable position: most of my categories were at zero because I had cleaned them out to finish my debt smack down in Dec, 2016. I had even used some of my buffer, so my January TBB was reduced and really lean. I chose to fully fund some of my categories rather than use the 1/12th monthly amounts. I reorganized my categories by priority, added the target amount to the category name, and knocked out my goals over the course of 2017. Most of my categories were filled by June of that year, and the last six months I worked on building up the emergency fund.
In 2018 I went back to sprinkling 1/12th to each category each month. I tend to see this method as operating in cruise-control on a newly paved highway. I don't regret the year-long experiment in which I fully funded each category in turn, but I don't think I'd do it again.
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amystylin luckily I was able to start putting a little bit of $ to all my sinking funds in savings because I didn't have an emergency or repairs or things to replace. So, I've been saving since Feb 2019 and now have $ for all the things I wanted, and still keep adding to it. However, if you have no $ in savings for an emergency, I'd focus on that first, then you can work on the other stuff.
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amystylin
I've tried both ways. I find that the psychological boost for me lies in funding one at a time. I would fund the Emergency Fund first because I like the feeling of safety. Then, I fund the rest of my goals using the snowball method (from least to most).
In the end, though, I think it's whatever keeps you motivated since you can always move funds around :)
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Claimed my line!
I didn't think I would be able to join this group this year but after the magic of math and a nice big check I am now debt-free!
Goals:
Tuition: 2500 by August (175/month starting Feb. I can put 1300 this month)
Student Loan: 1200 (My last debt but it's not in repayment for a year, total debt approx 12k) (100/month)
Arizona Trip: 4000 I told my boyfriend we would have to cancel, but maybe not? (200/month)
Savings Total: 5900-
January Check-in!
- Tuition - 1300 (1300/2500)
- Student Loan - 100 (100/1200)
- Arizona - 100 (100/4000)
January 29th came with the surprise that our car needs an additional 1700$ in repairs (we already knew about 2k). We are now debating whether it's worth repairing it or getting a new to us car. Then yesterday we learned that my aunt is selling her car and is willing to help us out! 2000, and willing to do payments if we can't pay it all upfront.
So our numbers may end up changing as we figure out our car issues, but in the meantime, this is where they are sitting. -
Ica Paige Have you been to Arizona before?
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Veronica nope! my boyfriend is slowly but surely bringing me to new places!
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Ica Paige I love that! We've had some cold weather lately (for us!), but Arizona is truly beautiful!
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February Check-in!
- Tuition - 200 (1500/2500)
- Student Loan - 100 (200/1200)
- Arizona - 23.53 (123.53/4000)
February was an expensive month because of my anniversary <3 Currently sitting in an air BnB enjoying skip the dishes because why not? I'm still consumer debt-free and on track for all my savings goals!!
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March Check-in!
- Tuition - 1000 (2500/2500)
- Student Loan - 600 (800/1200)
- Arizona - 40.75 (164.28/4000)
Wow what a weird month eh guys? Good news is that we got our Tax Refund really quickly and was able to put some money aside for the car repairs plus boost my saving goals. Tuition is paid for!! (assuming there is even school come September. -_-) Almost done my yearly goal for the student loan as well.
Bad news is my boyfriend got laid off and I probably will soon too. So money is a bit tighter than normal but we are in an amazing situation right now and we will be okay.
I'm not entirely sure if I am going to continue saving for the Arizona trip since everything is so up in the air right now and we don't even know when we will be able to travel but for now I will probably keep it as is.
Good luck to everyone in the coming months!
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Ica Paige Your positivity and gratitude is amazing <3
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QC aww thanks. It's definitely harder to be positive with everything going on but I am trying!
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Ica Paige
April Changes.
My boyfriend and I decided not to continue saving for Arizona right now. However, we will still put aside his vacation pay into it since that is literally the job for vacay pay.
We will still keep the same savings goal. We will raise the Student Loan goal and add "New Car" to our list.- Tuition - (2500/2500)
- Student Loan - (800/2700)
- Arizona - (164.28/200) (Gotta keep those round numbers!)
- New Car - (0/500)
Total Savings Goal : 5900
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Ica Paige
April Changes 2.0
Crazy crazy month!
My uncle is now selling his car and the mechanic gave us the go-ahead! So we need 2,500 for that. Plus money for taxes etc.
Plus, we applied for CERB but the wording is weird so I am not entirely sure I am eligible. I am still applying for now, but putting the majority aside just in case I need to pay it back. The money would help immensely but not if we are surprised with an 8k bill in March!
As for my boyfriend, we applied for the month of April since he was laid off, and then not even 30 minutes later got called back to work. I still need to look into how to pay that 2k back.
New savings goals:- Tuition - (2500/2500)
- Student Loan - (800/1200)
- Arizona (0/0)
- New Car - (164.28/4000)
- Taxes - (0/10,000)
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Ica Paige
The CERB will eventually be treated as taxable income with zero deductions taken from it, so whether you have to pay taxes on it will depend on how much you claim and how much income you get from other sources all year in addition to the CERB payments, as well as any tax-deductible contributions to charity, RRSP, etc. If you're worried about it, set aside 25%. The latest expanded eligibility criteria is linked here. (Apr.22/20)
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HappyDance
Oh they fixed the wording!
Before it said "you were off work for 14 days AND made less than 1000$".
I made less than $1000, but wasnt off for the 14 days so I wasn't entirely sure what to think of it. (This was directly after they announced the expansion). Figured I rather be safe than sorry!
Thank you for your reply! Now to go rearrange my priorities... again! XD
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Hi everyone, I claimed line 62. Last year I participated in the debt smackdown, followed by the savings challenge. YNAB helped me become debt free and fund an emergency fund, raising my net worth by approx. $20k in 2019. Here are my goals this year:
- $10,900 for my 2019 and 2020 Roth IRA's
- $7,400 for a "big stuff" fund (wedding/house)- $2,000 to supplement my emergency fund
Total: $20,300
I'm also separately contributing to an HSA and 401k.
YNAB FOREVER
Good luck everyone!
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Savings Crusher Cat Mother How did January go for your savings?
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January Check-in!!!!
I decided for now to just save in one lump sum. My reasoning... I am going to be scheduling a surgery. This will take my paychecks to about 67% of my normal pay (short term disability). As much as I want to save for several things, I may need to use this e-fund sooner than I expected.
So for January I have saved $590 in my E-fund.
I do expect a nice bonus in February. I will be saving most of this for unexpected bills and such due to surgery.
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I claimed line 67. I am doing the debt smackdown but also want to build up an emergency fund and my house fund at the same time.
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January update: I was able to put $600 in savings which is 12% of my goal. I also partly funded my T/E while paying about $3000 to debt. I want my student loan gone!
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Sarita I only saved $200 this month for this goal but I will have paid off my student loan next month and then can hopefully play a little catch up.
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I took line 68. I'm planning a cross country move later this year that I'd like to save 10k for - currently have $1172.54. That leaves me with: $8827.46 for moving and $220 for gifts ($20 a month but I could change this).
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We're paying down debt, but would like a little more of a cushion to start out the year. We're looking at saving $6,000 as quickly as possible & then we'll turn to debt.
We have a solid emergency fund. This $6k is what we call a 2nd level emergency fund & is for things like medical deductible, kitty emergencies, unexpected things with the house, etc.
Strategy...
$1,400 January
$400 February
$1,600 March (w/tax return)
$900 April
$900 May
$800 June-
Orchid Guitar
Line ID 69
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Orchid Guitar
January Check In
We were able to fund over $1.4k in January. Some of this was because we had been funding a Betterment account last year & we left these funds "off books" from YNAB, figuring the $ could tank to zero. Since we're in savings/debt payoff mode, we decided to cash out the Betterment account & add that $900 toward our stated goals.
We're so excited to be able to invest money, it was a hard decision. In the end, though, we have our priorities for this year, & Betterment wasn't in the picture.
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Orchid Guitar February Check-in: $773.47 to savings 🙂
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