Introductions

My name is terribly unimportant. The purpose of this blog is to chronicle my goal of saving $100,000 in order to buy a house with cash. I do not wish to carry a mortgage.

I am 27. I was born quite poor, and once I graduated college and found a job teaching that (to me, at least) paid quite a bit of money- $30,000 or so- I went overboard. My wife and I spent too much on credit cards, bought a house, and simply overspent. Even though we made a combined $60,000 a year, we were still spending more than we made. Pretty sad. Roughly two years ago my wife and I declared bankruptcy- a low point in my financial and personal life.

It was, however, both the best and worst decision I've ever made with money. Now that the debt is gone (I'm still paying back what I can when I can out of a sense of moral responsibility) we can actually start to save. Here's where we stand now:

I am currently a student at a law school in the southeastern United States. As a result, any work I get is part-time. I worked over the summer, but am currently looking for employment during the school year. My wife works at a job that pays roughly $30,000 a year, very good money for the part of the world we live in.

We are currently living with her parents, both in an effort to save some money and help them out financially. Later, I'll post a detailed budget- this is just a broad stroke.

We plan on living here at least another two years in order to reach our goal of buying a house. The bankruptcy has left a very sour taste in our mouths for debt- other than student loans, I don't want any. No credit cards, no mortgage, no car payments.

As of right now, we have this much saved.

Wife's credit union: $ 900.00
Online checking account: $ 15.34
Online savings account: $ 4.27
Conventional savings account: $2,290.75

Total saved so far: $3,210.36

We consider money "saved" if it's not to be touched unless a) one of us is dreadfully sick or bleeding, or b) some other emergency occurs. So that number will fluctuate at times, but should go up a lot more than down. That's the whole purpose of this blog- to keep us accountable, so that if we're tempted to get out a $20 bill to go to a restaurant, we won't.

Well, that's it for now. Time to go to bed.