July Goals

July will be my first FULL month of work. I received my first paycheck for 1 full week when I returned from getting my wisdom teeth out on Monday - I am using that paycheck as a "buffer" for this month, since my next paycheck will also only be 1 week's worth. We are currently apartment-hunting and have found 2 potential options with the move most likely occurring at the end of July/beginning of August. There will certainly have some expenses coming along with that as well!

So for July, I will not be doing a post about a budget since this is certainly not a "typical" month in terms of solid pay with 2 full weeks per paycheck and I am still in the midst of creating my official budget in Excel. However, I have decided that I would like to do goals!

1.) E-Fund: Save at least $100 towards my emergency savings; year-end goal of $2,500
2.) Roth IRA Savings Fund: Save $200 towards my Roth IRA; year-end goal of $3,000 (lump-sum for minimum initial investment at Vanguard)
3.) Budgeting: Loosely follow my preliminary budget & figure out official budget for August!
4.) Work Out: Try to work out at least 3x per week using my pilates & kickboxing DVDs (cheaper than joining a gym!)

Nothing too fancy to start out with. I am going to spend July following my spending habits and see where they lead me in terms of a budget. Good luck with your goals!

Update: I updated the sidebars and added a new one as well! I had $2,500 in my normal checking account that I certainly did not need sitting around, so I sent it to my ING account. I split it in half, putting $1,250 into my E-fund and the other $1,250 to start off my savings subaccount to open a Vanguard Roth IRA. Yay!