omigod Savings!

So today I made a big step forward in this journey; I opened a savings account! Yeah!

My savings goal is to have 2 months living expenses available as an emergency fund. That's about $2500. I could probably stretch that a bit more than 2 months, which would give me some much needed wiggle room should something happen.

I got a fairly large paycheck from my second job and put it right in the bank. As a side note, I love banking on Saturday because they have free coffee from Diesel in the lobby, what an awesome perk! Ran into one little snag as I was opening this account, though. Turns out some fees were leftover from my last bank (I think I overdrafted right after I moved) and I still owe them 74 bucks. Eesh. Thankfully my little neighborhood bank let me open the account anyway as long as I promised to rectify that debt within a week and have a letter sent to them.

There were a few types of accounts I could choose from. The very basic one only requires 10 dollars to open and only has about $1 per month in fees with a minimum balance of 10 bucks. I went with the slight step up Statement Savings. It requires a $250 average balance but you can get overdraft protection associated with it. I figure this will help pressure me to keep most of my money in there, and also give me a little cover if things get tight, like they did right after Christmas. I really don't want to feel that kind of anxiety about not being able to pay my bills ever again.

We're really rollin' now...