Saving made easy, big purchases made reality
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Are we only family who had a crazy 2015? Besides the normal young family adventures of starting second grade, camping trips, and another round of birthdays, we had some serious adventures and experiences last year, and many of them were made possible thanks to how easy it to save with 360 Savings from Capital One. We started off the year with plans, like a camping trip over my birthday, the 4th of July. But we made other plans, too. Jamie turned 40 last August, so we had to do something big.
Luckily, I'm a planner and had started saving for the celebration a year or so ahead of time, so I already had a tidy little sum set aside when we started talking about how to celebrate his milestone birthday.
The final choice? A cruise to Alaska (which was AMAZING) and was almost exactly the amount I'd stashed in my “Top Secret” 360 Savings account!
There were other things, too, because sometimes opportunities arise that you simply can't pass up. TWO family trips to Florida in the spring, first to visit Jamie's grandparents and then back a few weeks later because I was invited to the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration.
Again, we were able to pull these trips off because of savings accounts that we had set up with automatic deposits, allowing us to build our savings with almost no effort. We haven't been really aggressive with our savings; small deposits of $25 or so, every week, lets that money grow without having a dramatic impact on our finances. Setting up additional savings accounts is SO easy with Capital One. It takes about a minute and you're all set!
Another adventure of 2015? A spur-of-the-moment trip to Disneyland, to check out their Seasons of the Force exhibit. It was a whirlwind from The Force Awakens opening night to a plane ride to Disneyland, but it was a most excellent adventure and one we're thrilled to have made happen. In related news, Chewbacca is very soft and snuggly.
A recent Capital One survey found that only 1/3 of Americans felt they accomplished their financial goals in 2015, and we did NOT want to be among the majority there. Another, long-term, savings goal we had set was a new car for me. My 2005 Mazda has been a great vehicle for almost 11 years, but at 220,000 miles, we knew that a new something was coming up, so we had been saving for that as well.
Again, thanks to Capital One's 360 Savings, we were able to make a substantial down payment on my dream family car, an awesome Toyota 4Runner. While this was technically a 2016 purchase, our saving happened in 2015 (and before) so it gets credit for 2015.
And that brings us to 2016! We've already talked about our savings plans for the future, and have set a pretty lofty dollar amount goal for this year, but we think we can do it, with help from 360 Savings from Capital One.
We've got a couple of decent/better than decent cars, just took some amazing vacations, so it'll be a year of camping this year, and otherwise really buckling down to save. Because the next saving goal? Our dream house.
What are your strategies for saving? How are you reaching your goals?
