May – 2010 goal progress

Save 20 per cent of my income. I don’t think I quite made the 2o per cent threshold this month, because the majority of my take-home increase went towards our general living expenses and getting us out of overdraft. Once I get my next (and third) paycheck, which won’t have any overtime included, I’ll sit down and work out exactly how much of it I’ll be able to put away. Obviously I’d like to save all of it, but the raise came just in time to save our formerly-DINK-household asses. Ahh, those two or so months were glorious. Months that saw T’s car loan paid off and his savings increase, which is now back to, well, exactly where it was before.

This month I also started my first term deposit (6 months, 5.1 per cent). I had just over $3k sitting untouched at RaboPlus, and figured why not take advantage of those rates. That leaves me $2k liquid in that account, and I’ll probably put another $1k into another term deposit in a couple of months. Laddering FTW!

Try one new (to me) dinner recipe each week. I get to be the breadwinner. He gets to be the cook. But yes; where I only know how to make a few go-to meals, he’s the master of new twists and combinations.

Run once a week. We had some of the worst weather EVER last week, so I kind of failed on this goal. It’s also looking pretty grim this week, so I’m going to have to make a real effort to squeeze in a run one morning if I want to make the June goal.

Make an upwards career move. Officially done. Booyah.
It’s amazing how great it feels to be rewarded for what you’re doing, and how I can now feel proud to talk about my work, rather than trying to gloss over it in conversation order to hide my dissatisfaction. Easily pleased?

Donate to charity. The months are all blurring into each other, but my Visa statement shows I didn’t do this in May. Will have to make up for that in June.
At least I’ve been playing a lot of freerice – it’s freaking awesome; where else can you brush up on your vocab, geography, art and other languages while simultaneously racking up donations? I’ve donated a LOT of grains of rice through the site, during moments of boredom at home and work. DO it – you know you want to! I’ve also donated a couple of bucks to Doctors without Borders through Opinion World.

** Don’t forget to pop over to this week’s edition of the Carnival of Personal Finance! Revanche was kind enough to include my post on crazy bargain deal sites. **