The Best Way to Save for Short Term Goals

Our family of six is on a huge savings project this year: we are selling everything that we own and moving into an RV.

We have made this decision so we can downsize our lives, pay more attention to what is truly important, and save very quickly to buy land and build a house.

This is a big undertaking, and we are testing a couple different saving approaches to find out how best to save money for short term goals.

In this month, we have put away all the change and the $1 bills that we got throughout the month. Let’s check how much we have saved up for our RV fund this month.

We had a little bit in our bank account before January started but we did not have a ton.

Today, I am looking through the change we have saved, filling out our RV chart and then I am going to take all the money we have saved to the bank.

The money that we have received from selling a couple things from the house is also going in the same pile.

This month we have saved $379. I sold three things in our house, none of which were more than a hundred dollars, and the rest is $1 bills that we put away and change.

Moreover, this is only half of the $1 bills that we saved. The rest of them went into our Disney fund, which we have started building in a separate jar.

We started with just barely anything in both jars in the month of January, and the progress is really impressive.

I am putting all this cash in an envelope so it can go to the bank.

Let’s fill in our RV chart! I got this off of Debt Free Charts and they did not have one big enough for our savings goal so I printed out two, cut it in half and pasted them together. It is empty for now, and we are going to start filling this in today and keep doing it for the rest of the year.

First, I am adding the amount that we have in the bank account. We started January with $2,200 in the account, which I am putting in one color. The $379 we have now I will add in another color.

Together with the other savings, we have $4,500 saved in two months for our RV changing our budget and cash spending only.

We have decided that February is going to be a no-spend month, so we are expecting to save up significantly more than we did in January. I am excited to find out how much we will be able to come up with.

What is the best way to save money for short term goals in your opinion? Which methods have you tried and how did they work out for you? I would love to read about your experience and your thoughts in the comments.

Next, learn How I Set Up Sinking Funds to Save the Most Money.