2024 is almost here, and you know, the world might be a mess but maybe stockpiling a little pile is good.
We are continuing the 24 in 2024 challenges but have slightly adjusted the goal post for a new year!
The goal is simple, but not easy: save $20,240 this year.
If saving $20,240 of your salary isnāt practical - or if you make less than, say, $80,000 - consider the alternative 24 in 2024 Challenge: Save 24% of your income Both get the same sticker, but the threads will have people at similar income/challenge levels.
Basic rules:
The goal is to save $20,240 in 2024. If you make $65,000 per year, thatās 31% of your overall income. Just state the path and exchange rate youāre choosing (feel free to choose based on what makes sense for you.) You can wiggle the exchange rate around to a historical amount if you like as the USD is quite strong right now.
You can combine any type of savings: emergency fund, 401K, Super, IRA, taxable investments, buffer, house down payment fund, student loan payments - to reach your goal.
You can choose household or individual savings, whichever you prefer.
If your income is not in USD, you can choose to save 20.24K in your currency (i.e. $20,240 CAD or $20,240 AUD or ā¬20,240). OR save the equivalent of $20.24K USD (i.e $27,496 CAD or $30,879 AUD or ā¬20,220 )
What Counts
Debt repayment counts towards your savings total!
Mortgage principal (but not interest or escrow) counts.
Only savings that occurs between 1/1/2024 and 12/31/2024 count
If you are already retired, you can count savings you made after distributions (like pulling from a pension, etc).
You can use tax refund or any other windfall money towards your total savings.
you can count student loan forgiveness towards your savings.
What do you get:
Support on this thread as you go along - post monthly or quarterly check-ins as appropriate
A forum badge when you complete your $20,240
A sticker mailed to you for completing your $20,240 goal for the year
A shoutout on the livestream for reaching your goal!
Please Tag @anomalily when you hit any goals so we can get you your badge!
Iām not sure if Iām going to try to save double this (for both me and Wizard) ā depends on whether (a) Wizard gets employed again soon and (b) we buy a house. Minimally, though, Iāll be going for the $20,240 minimum!
ETA:
Official goal: $20,240 into retirement accounts.
Stretch goal: $40,480 into retirement accounts or mortgage principal (not counting a house down payment towards mortgage principal, since that money is already saved).
Here! Officially joining this challenge (instead of thinking I joined and apparently never following through )
Theoretically I should be able to do this without too much struggle, but the wildcard will be that my partner and I have bought a house (), so probably haha
Iām in! Iāll be working towards this with a combo of investment account contributions, 401k contributions, and general personal savings. I think $20,240 should be pretty doable for me, especially since most of my saving is on autopilot. I might set a stretch goal, but I think Iāll just focus on the base goal to start.
Iāll join! Official goal is household saving $20,240, stretch goal is double that for both me and DH. Hitting the stretch goal will depend a lot on how long I work into the new year, any bonuses for DH, and when/if I start working again.
I am in =) I might also do a stretch goal of 24k since Iāll hopefully get a COLA raise finally this year (been working without a union contract and at 2022 pay rates for the entirety of 2023).
Though if life goes the way I want it to we could be adding a new little human to our household this year and that might be a stretch goal unto itself!
Inclusions: mortgage principal, employee pension portion (me, getting ahold of his slips is impossible) TFSA, RRSP, RESP (1 child, J1 already has the maximum lifetime grant) RDSP (J1).
Exclusions: Heloc principal payments, car payments.
I think I might be able to make this with some tweaks! I was closer than I realized fpr 2023 (and also we gross more money than I realized, so 20,240 is less than 24%).
Tweaks:
-Any $$ that I have to take out of the HSA for upgrading the HVAC, does NOT count as negative savings. Any other money out of the HSA DOES count as negative savings.*
-I can count the principal on the loan for my van if I have to-we could have put more down on the van (reducing the payment) but chose not to.
So, stretch goal is to meet the 20,240 target WITHOUT counting the principal on the van loan.
*If anyone has a better idea how to manage the HSA, please speak up! We put in and take out money regularly but the goal is to grow it.
Pay off debt (like, 27k right now between home repairs, medical debts, and the credit card I forgot to pay more than the minimum on for like four months oops)
Put 2024 specifically into Moās savings account. Goal is to basically do this for each year of her life.
Going for saving Ā£2400 this year. Which is my realistic version of the goal.
Saving Ā£200 per month will stop me doing anything like as much frivolous spending as I have been doing. Of course, if I can save more, all to the good.
Currently I have Ā£2133.50 stashed away in my main savings account, so a nice stretch goal would be to get that up to Ā£4800 by yearās end. I make that 4800 - 2133.50 = Ā£2666.5
And a fallback goal would be Ā£2024 (but Iām not going to need that ā determined face)
True story: I messed up typing out the numbers in that post above, and wrote Ā£2133.50 instead of Ā£2113.50 (Hello Dyscalculia I hate you, you suck).
But rather than correcting the number downwards in the post, I realised I could add Ā£20 to the savings.
So as my Physics teacher regularly had to write on my calculations: āMistake correctly carried through.ā
(And Ā£20 more saved to start the year off on the right foot)
Ok I know I committed above but thought I would build out some buckets instead of just a lump sum.
TFSA - $15,000 (I have some extra room to use)
RRSP- $15,000 (profit sharing and extra deposits)
Freedom 55 savings account- $5,000 - I opened this savings account specifically for cash on hand to start my next phase when Iām ready
Stretch goal - for home renovation budget- $25,000 - I want my bathroom done for my Christmas present to me.
Checking in! I am estimating that we are currently at $2603 saved as of the end of Januaryā¦ but I got a $600 HSA incentive sooo that really juiced the January numbers.
Itās an estimate because I told the Boy I would only ask for his pay stubs every other month as he finds them cumbersome.
(Edited because I forgot the mortgage principal before)
If saving $20,240 of your salary isnāt practical - or if you make less than, say, $80,000 - consider the alternative 24 in 2024 Challenge: Save 24% of your income Both get the same sticker, but the threads will have people at similar income/challenge levels.
)
), so 
ā determined face)