4-6 Months of Savings

I've never sat down and determined what the dollar amount for 4-6 months of savings was; I've mostly been in a position in which savings was not a serious possibility, due to expenses and debt compared to income. Now that I'm working and finally have a paycheck that's stable for awhile, and have all the deductions applied, I know what my takehome pay will be; up until now it has fluctuated due to additions and changes to my deductions.

It took awhile because the pension fund is automatic so was a deduction on my first paycheck, as was parking, the amount for which changed immediately; these were followed by my benefits payments once I was eligible. Because there was a problem with a fax machine, my deferred compensation was added later, as was my healthcare savings plan as I didn't go into that for last year. Now that I know how much money is left for me to spend, it seems like it should be plenty to pay my basic bills; the trick is going to be maintaining my austerity program and getting the other stuff taken care of.

Housing, utilities, loans, cellphone, insurance, gas, groceries and haircuts are the typical expenses. I spend about $100 on gas monthly at the current rates; however, my grocery bills fluctuate and I don't pay close attention. My first objective will be to keep track of how much I spend at the grocery store and how I spend it.

I haven't been paying as much attention to coupons lately and need to be more diligent about that. Grocery prices seem to have gone up lately, but my store still has two for one meat coupons, which is good. Last week they had a lot of produce coupons, but for items I don't use or wouldn't use two of quickly enough that they wouldn't be wasted.