Tell Me How To Spend My Money #5

Tell me how to spend my moneyWe haven’t done one of these “Tell me how to spend my money” things in a while. I had actually completely forgotten all about it, thankfully my insurance renewal came in the mail to remind me. Just like with the first of these, I have extra money leftover after I pay our car insurance in full for the next 6 months.

Saving money for our car insurance using daily transfers is SO easy, it would also be easy for me to adjust the amount we’re saving. But that wouldn’t be much fun, in terms of these posts—well I have fun with it. :-)

So far, not counting this one, readers have voted on what I should do with a total of $275.00 over the 4 previous posts. After this one, it’ll be over $350.00. Please leave your vote in the comments section and just 1 vote per person—keeps things simple. You can choose for me to use it all toward one option or split it up between 2 or more, here we go:

How much we’re working with here: $80.40

Option 1: Roth IRA at ShareBuilder.com
Current balance: $568.08
Associated goals or other info: Balance to $1,000 (2012 goals)

Option 2: Betterment.com Account
Current balance: $128.15
Associated goals or other info: This isn’t counting my separate goal with them that I put money from my RISE plan into, this is just the same money that I haven’t contributed to for months.

Option 3: Emergency Fund   <—– Winner (100%)
Current balance: $1,724.96
Associated goals or other info: Balance to $2,000 (2012 goals)

Option 4: Travel Fund
Current balance: $125.74
Associated goals or other info: Separate from Europe trip, going to FinCon12 this year and will need money for cab fare, food, etc.

Option 5: Household
Current balance: n/a
Associated goals or other info: I’ve been needing to replace a few things around the house, but I haven’t been able to afford it yet.

***You can vote from now until Thursday, April 26th & I’ll apply the money to it the next day (on the 27th). Happy voting. :-)

 

About Jen Perkins

Likes: saving money, being debt free (aside from our house), zombies, travel, getting money, blogging and dogs. Dislikes: debt, being broke, bunnies, wasting money, not having enough money to travel the world and paying interest. Facebook  ♥  Twitter  ♥  Google+  ♥  RSS

Comments

Tell Me How To Spend My Money #5 — 26 Comments

  1. Option 3: Emergency Fund until it’s fully funded. And I’d recommend a higher emergency fund goal as well, but most people think I’m too conservative in that regard. (I’m shooting for 6 months’ basic living expenses by the end of the year.)

    • This is just my goal for 2012, I plan to keep increasing it. If I was solely focused on the emergency fund, it would be a higher goal for the year. But I’ve got some other areas that need attention too right now: Roth, travel fund, Europe trip as well as increasing the balances in my other savings accounts (car expenses, health and dental, puppy etc.). Thanks for voting Remy. :-)

  2. That travel fund looks a little light. 25% to the emergency fund, the rest to the travel fund. You only live once!

  3. I say $60.40 to an emergency fund and $20 to a small, local charity of your choice. Both are smart and will make you feel GREAT!

  4. My first reaction is the travel fund because I love to travel. However, in reality, something else is probably more important. I like YPF suggestion of doing a split between ER fund and travel fund. Seems like a balanced approach.