Yesterday, after I posted about the Cowabunga Bay Waterpark Season Pass Deal, I had a reader ask me how I afford to pay for those types of things. And I realized that I hadn’t really done a post just on that. I’ve only mentioned it in my “Howto Use Your Checking and Savings Accounts” post briefly. So it’s time to share what our family does. And if you have great ideas or tips that help your family afford the FUN stuff, definitely comment and let us all know!
After we get every paycheck, I allot 10% to our Regular Savings Account and we also pay 10% in tithes to our Church. Those things get moved immediately after we get paid. Out of sight, out of mind, right? It’s easier to not be tempted to use it or lose track of the money if it is in its own account.
One thing you can do on top of that is also put 5%-10% from each Paycheck into a “FUN” Savings Account. Just have you bank open another savings account just for that. (Most banks should offer to open that account free and it should be a super simple set up.) Since most people get paid twice a month, you will have 10%-20% of your total monthly income going into a FUN Savings Account. It adds up guys!
At certain times of the year, I know what things we typically purchase. And I also know what things we want to do–like family vacations! So having that FUN Savings Account can really help you have actual money allotted to fun. Without it, and without budgeting it in, you might feel suffocated or so tight with bills and other things to pay that you never have money for the fun stuff. And life isn’t very fun without it!
You can allot as much as you want to the FUN Savings Account. I typically do 10%. But if money is really tight, move over what you can. Maybe it’s only 5%…. maybe it’s only 3%. Fun things to do with the family can be cheap or expensive. But if your kids are anything like mine, they don’t care how much something costs. They just want to be with you and the family doing something together. So don’t get discouraged if 3% is all you can afford to set aside. It adds up!
The only other thing I would recommend is to make sure you don’t just have a FUN Savings Account without a regular savings account too. That regular savings account is there in case of an emergency–like being laid off, your car breaking down or needing a new AC Unit… that money is there to help you out of rough situations you weren’t planning on. If you don’t have one and/or aren’t contributing to it each paycheck, what happens if you are only contributing to a FUN Savings Account and something breaks or goes wrong? The money would have to be taken from there. And that would be sad to think you had all of that money saved up for something super special, like a family vacay, only to realize all of your hard work saving has to be used on something else. So make sure you have a Regular Savings Account and a FUN Savings Account.
Hope that helps you guys a bit and you can start budgeting and saving for those fun things too! Again, would love to hear YOUR TIPS on how you budget and save for the fun stuff. 🙂
Erica
Thanks for posting this. This is a good idea, and something that my husband and I have been tossing the idea around for a little while. I think it is something we will start doing. We have our regular savings account for emergencies, but if we have a separate one for vacations and fun, I think we will feel more able to go on fun vacations and do fun things. Thanks for sharing your ideas! Love your blog!! 🙂
Morgan
This is something we should really start doing. We’ve been good at setting aside money for ‘needs’ like our “Baby Savings” acct where we put away money to have another baby and our “Graduate School Savings” acct, but we haven’t considered a “Fun Savings” acct because we keep thinking, “We can have fun when we’re out of Grad school” or, “We can’t do that because we have to save for another baby” and now when we pull money out of one of those savings accounts for activities I always feel guilty. BUT if I just put it away FOR FUN to begin with, no guilt, right? Ha. We’ll see…
Susan
I have been doing something like this for years – however I have a little twist to it so that I don’t have so many bank accounts to keep track of. I have one savings account and an excel spreadsheet. Across the top of the spreadsheet I have all the “accounts” that I would want to save for: emergency, Christmas, Summer Vacation, new car, medical expenses, clothing, property taxes, insurance, etc. After figuring out what we need each year, I divide by how many paychecks we get and that goes in the savings account. Each “account” has a total at the bottom which add to the total in the last column, matching the total in the account. It has worked for us for 30 years and there are never – or almost never – surprises that we can’t afford. It takes a little time, but its nice to be able to quickly look at the spreadsheet on my computer and know exactly what we have saved for each event/expense that may be coming up. Our budget is also on excel and every “account” in the savings has a spot on my budget so that I know what goes in “account” each time.
Amber
I follow Dave Ramsey, there is a FREE new budget tool that was just released! “EveryDollar allows you to focus your money on what matters: day-to-day spending, knocking out those pesky debts, and building wealth.” https://www.everydollar.com
Dana
Great article! Also, whenever I have a yard sale or sell things on the classifieds, I put that money into our FUN savings. Another thing I do is anytime I get reimbursed for things like mileage for work or any other odds and ends that money gets put into FUN savings b/c that money is already out of our account anyway and we won’t miss it. It adds up too.
LuLu
I open and close credit cards frequently. I get statement credits for opening the account and using it within a period of time. Once I meet the requirements, I close the account. I have accumulated quite a bit of money by doing this. Having said that, this option is not one for everyone. You have to have very good credit to open and close accounts without it affecting your credit score (financial guru Suze Orman said this was ok). I also have a few credit cards that I don’t ever close that are for my regular purchases. I get cash back rewards with those credit cards. A credit card is a very bad option if you have no self-control and can’t pay off a credit card balance at the end of the month. If you can, it can open up a world of free stuff you can get through points or money in your pocket through gift cards and cash back. Again, no self-control=bad option, no-no for you!!
Melea Johnson
Totally agree! If you don’t have near perfect credit, opening and closing credit cards for the perks can really ruin your credit. But it sounds like it works great for you though because of your score!
Margaret
This is a weird question. How do you work out tithing from the money you save on deals? Specifically, I’m not sure what to do about Swagbucks or Pinecone Research . My husband says it’s like couponing in that the gift cards are a discount to my Amazon purchases. And the surveys I take for Pinecone go straight to PayPal. Have you worked something out for that? Do you take 10% from that? Sorry, I’ve always wondered what others do.
Melea Johnson
I’m not sure what other people do and I’m sure everyone could have different opinions on this. But we pay 10% of all of our “increase” or money coming in. So if cash comes in to paypal, I pay tithing on it. 🙂
Kaylene
So something my husband and I do is we set up Dedicated Savings accounts through America First. These are completely free to set up and Make you save! Every month they automatically take out money from our checking account and put them into these savings accounts (We put $15 in each childs account, $50 in our Christmas account and $25 in our savings account for a total of $120 a month) While that doesn’t seem like a lot (and isn’t 10% of our earnings) it REALLY adds up. For our kids, we start right when they are born. My oldest is 7 and she has over $1500 now and by the time she needs a car or gets married or anything else it will be nice to have that money saved for her! Plus for our Christmas fund, by November we have over $600 to spend on Christmas (plus I buy cheap things throughout the year, so we always have way more then we need.) The best thing about the Dedicated Savings is that you can’t use that money unless (1) it matures and opens for you to touch (which happens on a date you choose) or (2) you pay a fee to touch it. This helps us so that we don’t just pull that money out any time we want to – I’m too cheap to pay the fee. However if an emergency occurs we can touch it. Plus, these accounts earn pretty good interest!
Another thing I do is every time I earn money from Pinecone research or cash back from Shopathome (or anything like that) I cash it out and put it in my fireproof safe. Then, when something fun occurs and we don’t have a lot of money, I just go get the cash out of it. Its amazing how fast that really can add up – and its not something that really has to come out of our budget!
I definitely agree that budgeting for fun is something everyone should do. Life is so full of unforeseen occurrences, its good to have some money to play and enjoy life!