Challenge Update

I mentioned that Ramit Sethi over at I Will Teach You To Be Rich has a one-month $1,000 savings challenge. The gist: follow his advice and you'll save $1,000 in November. Maybe, but either way, I'm giving it a try. Sethi mentioned turning the heat down, and I haven't done that but I'm still working at sealing the windows up. I do one every day or so. It takes about a half-hour to do a window right, and, since it's going to be there for five months, I want it to look good. I've located closets that seem particularly badly insulated. One I was able to simply close. Another one doesn't have a door, and it's unfortunately in our bedroom. I'm looking into buying some cheap, heavy drapes at a thrift shop and putting those up.

Tip #3 was to sell something on EBay. I put my electric toothbrush up for sale, which I spent way too much money on and found I didn't like to use. We'll see if I get any hits on that. I have to say, however, that when I moved a few months ago, I put a lot of my old items for sale and I made a pretty good haul. I think I might make it an annual project to do this.

Still doing Tip #1, which is pack your lunch. I haven't done this every day, but it's enough that I know it's going to make a dent.

I'm ignoring Tip #4, which is to get friends involved in Sethi's challenge, because I just don't feel like it. Same with Tip #6, something about using gas price as a hedge fund by putting the money we're saving now into a separate account and using it to defray future costs. Again, I just don't feel like going through that effort.

I'm planning on doing Tip #5 and Tip #7. They are (respectively), trying to haggle your cell phone bill down, and not spending any money one day a week. Both seem like sound practices, and I'm a little miffed at how high my cell phone bill is every month.

In other news, Friday is payday, and I'll have a chunk of money that I can throw at my savings!!! Also, tomorrow I may get some news on the progress of my yearly bonus. My company locks in a certain bonus percentage each quarter, and then tacks on an additional percentage which is equal to the average of all four quarters. I've locked in a 4.08% bonus so far. Because we usually have an uptick in sales at the end of the year, the bonus is projected at around 12%. Tomorrow I'll find out how much we earned for the third quarter. The bonus pays out in February. Wohoo!