this wasn't in the plan |but life is still pretty good

It wasn't until recently that The Tall One and I had any really concrete savings goals. As long as we didn't run out of money and living below our means life was good. But in the past 6-9 months or so we've tried to organize our savings a bit (okay, I like to organize our savings, he thinks I'm a bit fanatical about our ING subaccounts). I like this for two reasons, it keeps us focused and helps me not freak out when we spend a chunk of money at once.

Back around President's Day - the day to buy new furniture apparently - TTO was trying to convince me to go out and use our tax refund to buy a dining set. I was surprised with how easily he gave up the convincing. Later he told me it was because I had reminded him of what sorts of things we were saving for and how the tax refund money would help us get there faster. The savings goals kept us focused on a bigger picture. And, coincidentally, we just recently purchased a new to us dining set from craigslist for exactly what TTOs grandpa sent us for Christmas.

Last week we bought plane tickets so that we can travel to TTOs family reunion in July and travel to the beach to spend some time with my family. Plane tickets are expensive and it was hard to click that submit button when we reserved the tickets. But then I realized that we had saved up money specifically for travel expenses, so why should I think twice about spending money on what it was intended to be spent on? One of our savings goals was to save a certain amount of money for irregular expenses such as travel expenses. We reached that goal rather quickly (thanks to the tax refund) so now it's ready to be used.

Setting goals of any kind is always a good thing and I've found that setting even small term financial goals can be extremely helpful to keep us in control of our money.