Space Cadet Hi there. What an exciting life change! Probably you already thought of this, but just a reminder to double-check if there are penalties, hidden benefits, or limitations for using your RPP and RRSP to fund apprenticeships or non-retirement expenses. (I'm not familiar with them)

Also I would strongly suggest additionally budgeting a few months of emergency fund/income replacement on top of your apprenticeship tuition and living expenses. I say this only as somebody who used my own retirement and emergency fund savings to quit my office job in 2017 and attend a training program for my new career...but I didn't budget for the months afterwards while job searching / waiting for my income to stabilize. At one point I ended up in a pretty dire situation with almost all my life savings gone and dipping into credit card debt. It might not happen to you, but I wouldn't wish it on anyone else!

Best of luck on your big career move!

The Artist Formerly Known As Hi! Thanks for reminding me about the restrictions! I had actually forgot when I was detailing this. Luckily in Canada there's an option to borrow from your RRSP without paying interest, but the repayment is much quicker than student loans. The RPP doesn't have that option so I'll need to pay taxes on it, but I think I will get it back during tax time the following year since my income will be pretty low. 

But those are more reasons for why it's so important to have extra saved, like you said. I honestly had not thought of what will happen after school so I appreciate the heads up. 😓 I think I won't get to start school until September 2022 (unfortunately) so that will give me some extra time to save. 

It's great to get advice from someone who has gone through the exact same thing not long ago. Thank you so much! 😊

When I began using YNAB in November of 2019 upon recommendation of a friend, our situation was dire. My wife and I were dealing with 2 kids off at college and a rising amount of consumer debt, which had reached around $23K. In the 18 months since then, we have wiped out all of the consumer debt while still having our kids in college, refinancing our mortgage to save 9.5 years of payments, putting an $11K down payment on a new car (first one in 9 years), and increasing my wife's retirement contributions to 19% of her salary. Now we are on to building the emergency fund, which is now where we would like it to be.

I set the goal at $4000 earlier in the year, and I'm still going to try and reach it. Our circumstances have changed a bit in the meantime (nothing life changing, just a few adjustments in our income and outgoing bills) but we are still going to try and hit the goal. 

For June, we were able to save $600. This is 15% of our goal for the year.

Our savings amount for July is $650. This brings us to 31% of our goal.

$300 for August. 38.75% of our goal.

Corruptress for what it's worth, this article helped me visualize how setting aside money for true expenses is important, even when you're trying to pay down debt. https://www.youneedabudget.com/how-to-stay-out-of-debt-forever/

Ivory Tiger Thank you.

Sky Blue Snow Use scheduled transactions for EVERYTHING (well, not groceries, but if those are on a credit card, then you'll have the statement as a scheduled transaction) and turn on the running balance in your account register to see cash-flow projections.

I move Y amount to savings such that the balance right before my next paycheck is X (low side), but others like to start the month with X (high ish) in checking so that all expenses+a cushion is present. Then they move the excess (Y) to savings.

Move Light Sound Life Okay, I’m an English major, so I need it dumbed down a little haha.

Do you mean scheduling transactions when you use cash? Or pre-planning your spending outside of how YNAB is built? I only use cards as a general rule, so I’m not sure what problem that solves.

And I think I’m going to continue keeping less in my checking just to be safe. I had someone try to charge a $900 AirBnB a while back, and I’m not keen for that to happen again 😊

Sky Blue Snow https://support.youneedabudget.com/t/y4hllkz/using-scheduled-transactions-for-cash-flow-projection-in-ynab

I tried to tag you, but it wouldn't let me. 

March update: Saved a total of $2500. Compulsively window shopping for sofas as I near my move date! Ended the month with $9000 in savings.

Sky Blue Snow  

Ended April with $15,000 in savings! I had another student loan disbursement (my last ever!! Or so I plan), so that contributed to the much higher than normal savings. I saved about $2000 on my own and $4000 from student loans.

I'm moving earlier than normal, so that savings is going to go way down, but as of right now, categories are as follows:

• $1,500 - Wish farm
• $3,675 - Various emergency funds
• 6,660 - Medium-term savings (tuition for fall, new furniture, moving out)
• $1,176 - Recurring savings (annual work convention, certifications, car insurance)

This is about $2,000 off from my actual savings account. I've been trying to keep only enough for one pay period in my checking account, and so far I haven't had to move money from savings to cover spending. But there is a $2,000ish buffer in savings that is funded towards various spending categories.

Currently playing with the toolkit and trying to get a little bit past the entry-level YNAB stuff. My AOM is currently 65 days, and my buffer is 116 days.  I know that stuff isn't part of the challenge, but I love seeing what others' numbers are, so I thought I'd include it! 

Move Light Sound Life I just wanted to say -- it took a few weeks for this to make sense to me, but I've been adding scheduled transactions little by little, and I really like it!! Thank you for your help :) 

After moving and an unexpected car repair, my savings took a hit, but I'm back to adding money to my savings rather than taking from it!

• Birthday trip: $800
• Convention: $1,000 (already paid for airfare so this will be hotel and incidentals)
• Yearly fees: $265
• Car insurance: $275.81
• Retirement: $1,200 (saving to max this at tax time)
• Misc. furniture: $303.98
• Misc. emergency funds: $5238.79
• Paddle boards: $500

Total: $9,583.58

Halfway to my $20,000 goal... But I have been (and will continue to be) spending along the way, so while I might not hit that number at the end of the year, I'll have set it aside throughout the course of this year! Fun!

Rachel Woohoo, yay for progress! 

 May Check in: slightly below monthly savings goal, but back on track for next month. However, I fully funded my Roth IRA this month , so celebrating that. Next goal = get a month ahead on immediate expenses to break the paycheck to paycheck cycles and increase my Age of Money (AOM). Hope everyone else had a good May. 

bookyarncafe 50% through 2021, 58.22% toward my savings goal. feeling pretty good about that. 

These challenges really hold me accountable and I get super inspired by this community. 

Zoë Woooo! Welcome. You've got some fantastic goals there. I'm rooting for you and this vacation. :) 

Zoë 

May check in:

• Holiday (Sept 21): €100 / €750: May €100
• Study Renovation (Oct 21): €575 / €2,000
• Emergency Fund: €0 / €1,000
• Total: €675 / €3,750 -> 18%

Slightly concerned I may have overextended myself to the end of the year but I'll see how the next few months go and WAM or amend my plans if necessary.

Still, any progress is good!🌞

Zoë 

June check in:

• Holiday (Sept 21): €260 / €750: June €160
• Study Renovation (Oct 21): €1,100 / €1,750: June €525
• Emergency Fund: €0 / €1,000
• Total: €1,360 / €3,500 -> 39%

I've reduced my study renovation goal from €2k to €1.75k after doing some more accurate costings.  It's also become apparent to me that even though the project is scheduled from October I probably need to have the funds available (and possibly most of the spending done) by the end of August to allow for delivery/lead times.  So I've stopped putting extra to my debt and am prioritising these goals instead.

I'm still optimistic all goals will be met by the end of the year so it's hopefully just a matter of timing 🤞

Zoë 

July check in:

• Holiday (Sept 21): €420 / €750: June €160
• Study Renovation (Oct 21): €1,550 / €1,750: June €450
• Emergency Fund: €0 / €1,000
• Total: €1,970 / €3,500 -> 56%

It was my birthday this month and I got some very generous gifts towards my study renovation!

The way things are going I'm no longer sure I'll meet my EF goal but if I can put anything to it at all it's better than nothing.

Zoë 

August check in:

• Holiday (Sept 21): €580 / €750: August €160
• Study Renovation (Oct 21): €1,550 / €1,750: August €0
• Emergency Fund: €0 / €1,000
• Total: €2,130 / €3,500 -> 61%

Holiday saving will be finished in September just in time!  In future I think I'll set goals to be done the month prior to their due as I'm not yet fully a month ahead.

ISuckatMaths Welcome back and congrats on all of this progress!

June EOM Update:

So it turns out I can't math, so my target is actually somewhat lower than I indicated last time. Here's what June looks like:

1) MOOP (Medical Out Of Pocket Max): $5,925.20/10,000   +$0.00

        This one is somewhat impressive as I had to steal from it to cover unexpectedly large car costs + did some spending on non-FSA covered items/things I couldn't use the FSA card on. The latter will get reimbursed eventually.

2) Funeral/Death Costs: $44,888.37/$45,000 +$150

        This one will be fully funded next month.

3) IRF/EF: $7,787.75/$12,000 +$1,666,69

        I decided to focus on this one and putting money toward other True Expenses in small amounts, to reduce needing to steal from this one. Worst case, I end up using this for housing/moving when needed. Some of this increase is moving money in from the not moving fund.

4) Not Moving Fund: $0/$0 - I decided to remove this one/combine it with the EF savings. Having a somewhat able to be anticipated TE come up that was more expensive than expected made me reconsider how I'm handling savings right now.

I'm not actually sure this gets to count as savings, since my overall income vs. expenses for the month was -$1,111.08, but all of those overages were covered by budget categories or WAMed, and the savings categories changed as noted above, so I'm counting it as savings.

Fuzzball Meows Your journal and savings challenge posts remind me of Jesse's interview with Chanel Reynolds - I really appreciate you sharing your journey and budgeting thought processes along the way. Hugs to you as you sort through what is most important these days.

July EOM Update:

1) MOOP (Medical Out Of Pocket Max): $5959.28/10,000   +$34.08 (60%)

        This one actually has more saved to it, but I'm waiting on FSA reimbursements to process. I've been spending FSA eligible things on the credit card to make use of cash back, and covering that spending from the MOOP category until the FSA reimbursement comes through. Because there's the chance the reimbursement will be denied. 

2) Funeral/Death Costs: $45,000/$45,000 +$111.63 (100%)

3) IRF/EF: $7,922.15/$12,000 +$134.4 (66%)

        Still focusing on this and saving small amounts for TEs. Which means this will be slow progress. 

4) Not Moving Fund: $0/$0 

This was a three-paycheck month, so savings are actually savings this time!

I don't think there will be much spending between now and Wednesday, and certainly none that would eat into savings, so...

August EOM Update:

1) MOOP (Medical Out Of Pocket Max): $5978.55/10,000   +$19.27 (still 60%)

        Once again, this one will be higher when FSA reimbursements are submitted and processed. Hospice will slowly be taking over the majority of the medications, though, so I should see outstanding amounts lessen. (Meds are currently a couple to a few hundred a month, mostly for P. It should go down to less than a hundred a month once hospice has taken over what they're going to take over.)

2) Funeral/Death Costs: $45,000/$45,000 +$0 (100%)

        Keeping this one here in case we need to WAM from it. I don't think we will. How do other people treat savings in this challenge when it comes time to spend from it? We've started talking about planning for this, and I think pre-paying is less expensive than paying at the time, usually, so I expect the amount saved to change this year. But I'm not planning on replacing spending; it shouldn't be needed.

3) IRF/EF: $7,946.06/$12,000 +$23.91 (still 66%)

        While I'm expecting to cut back/lose income in the near future, the plan is to pull that from the imaginary money, not this, at least for now. So still going to be slowly saving here, I hope. Still trying to balance larger saving with funding larger, unpredictable TEs. I suppose these are larger unpredictable TEs, technically. But I'm thinking of things like car maintenance, clothing replacement, etc. 

Fuzzball Meows For funeral etc costs I would note the total amount saved even after you've spent from it. If you've got the category set up as a "spending target by date" then the progress bars in YNAB will show you when planned spending has been completed, so you don't need to refill the category and can easily track your total savings there and in this forum.

Agreed that pre-paying will help reduce those costs, both by being able to negotiate an up-front payment discount and also the fact that you can make less emotional decisions (I mean, it's obviously emotional either way but you have the benefit of a clearer mind and less immediate time pressure). When planning my father's funeral expenses, I definitely spent more than I needed to simply because it was unexpected and he had made no preparations to help me make decisions quickly and weigh the costs and value to us as a family. Hugs to you, and also a lot of respect for managing this process the way you are.

karine7 Congrats on meeting 2 of your 3 goals already! You're totally on track to meet your 3rd. You got this! Totally hear you on the housing market issue. It's bananas!