YES! It’s a double whammy – watching it grow, and then not touching it for a while to really appreciate it, and more importantly no increase your standard of living as you mention. I hope you do give it a shot – I’m pretty excited about it already, even though I only have 15 cents in there right now (found a dime and nickel on the ground this week, haha…). Should be good once the adjusted bills start hitting our account!

And I like the idea of holding onto the cash for 6 months. I’ve been toying with the idea of doing a similar thing every time I start making more money. For example, if I make $5k extra in a year, I won’t let myself spend any of that extra for the first year – just to ensure that my standard of living stays behind my income level.

Great idea! You could switch goals for it every additional year as well. “The Savings of AWESOME” haha..

Waiting 12 months may seem like a lot, but then I thought it would be awesome to use account this for next year’s anniversary. Thanks J!

Yes, exactly! Very similar idea indeed – you totally need to write that post up for your audience. It’s all these simple, easy, ways we need to take advantage of that end up producing some pretty big results down the line. And I’m all about simple and easy :)

Haha… way to go :) And great job w/ your daughter too! I’m so glad you like this idea. I’m really excited about it and hoping it becomes a game changer for us, and for future savings/expense cutting. Feels like it closes the loop with everything, and can’t believe I’m just now realizing it?

Oh wow 5% – and even 3% – is pretty unheard of these days, good for you. Have always heard good things about Navy Federal.

Brilliant!!! And since you were already used to (and had budgeted in) the old expense, it’s not like you noticed any change whatsoever. Except for being much more happier :)

Heck yeah! There’s a lot of things you can do with $1,000 too – it’s quite the nice reward for a lot of hard work :)

Here is an idea that may keep you and your wife motivated long term. We, like you, have a young one (will be 2 y/o) in one month. The month before she was born, I started a side job teaching a rock climbing class. I am paid but consider it more of a hobby and am using it more to have access to the facilities to train. Since we really don’t need the money for our day to day, we started putting it all into a separate fund dedicated to paying for her college education. We continue to add my class pay annually + any unexpected money (cash back rewards from credit cards, gifts, unexpected refunds, etc). We project that if I keep the teaching gig (about 3 hours/week, 8 mos/year) + the other additions, we’ll be able to easily pay her whole college if needed and then have some w/o ever putting any of our “real” wages into this fund. A similar fund for you could be a nice end destination for your savings. The magic of small actions, repeated over time can have huge effects! Working on writing up this plan in detail on the blog soon.

Cheers!
Chris