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"Another day, another goal accomplished. I went online and signed up to make my savings automatic. Beginning in April, I will now have $200 deposited automatically into my emergency fund before I can miss it. Don&amp;#039;t worry, I don&amp;#039;t have to make more room in my already-tighter-than-my-high-school-jeans budget\u2013\u2013it&amp;#039;s already in there. OK, honesty time: I haven&amp;#039;t been good about my emergency fund up until now. Since my project with WomansDay.com began, I reworked my budget to have $200 a month deducted from my paychecks ($100 each bi-weekly check) to put into my company&amp;#039;s 403B retirement fund and another $200 a month earmarked for my emergency fund. The thing is, I did this a few times faithfully but then &amp;quot;things&amp;quot; got in the way. &amp;quot;Mom, I have two birthday parties to go to next weekend, can you please take me to buy presents?&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Mom, I forgot to tell you that for my band concert (tomorrow) I need khaki pants and a white oxford and my old ones don&amp;#039;t fit me.&amp;quot; Sound familiar? These are the things that eat away at a budget faster than my dog, Henry, can gobble up the crumbs my kids spill on the floor. In my last blog, I wrote about how, going forward, I&amp;#039;m going to take two hours on the last Friday of each month to create a new budget for the upcoming month. This will allow me to better plan for those &amp;quot;things&amp;quot; that can crop up. Granted, I won&amp;#039;t be able to plan for everything, but that&amp;#039;s what my newly-automated emergency fund will be for. You see, I&amp;#039;ve learned that when money is automatically deducted from my paychecks (like my 403B, medical and dental insurance) I don&amp;#039;t even miss it\u2014at all. Really, I don&amp;#039;t. So, if that&amp;#039;s the way that I have to do things to build up my savings, then so be it. Sorry, kids. I will no longer be the last-minute ATM machine for your 11th hour &amp;quot;emergencies.&amp;quot; You too will have to plan your financial needs for the month and share them with me ahead of time. I think it&amp;#039;s a good lesson for them. For me, too. How do you fund your savings account? Do you make it automatic? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/a46212/getting-thereaautomatically-410/>