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My baseball season is officially over. This means that my Saturdays are free once again! It was a rough season as we had two games cancelled due to weather. We had a chance at winning the district championship, but the two rainouts hurt and we ended with the 2nd best record in the league. This means that I get to focus more time on my writing.

Not only is the baseball season over, but my school year is three weeks from ending. This time is a time of transition as we are trying to figure out our plans for the summer. My sister is visiting in June and we will be traveling to Nebraska at the beginning of July. I am looking for time off to recharge, spend time with my family, focus on my blog each day and develop more technology based lessons for my students in the new school year!

In April, I spent most weekends coaching baseball and my family came to watch all of the games. Our only weekend without a baseball game was Easter weekend and we went to celebrate my Aunt’s 50th birthday. We had a great time in Branson hanging out with my father, aunt, uncle, sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew.

Not only was our trip great in April, but my baseball team won every game they played in April. I love baseball season and will miss coaching my players, but I will enjoy more time off to be with my family.

Goal #1 Update:

Goal #1 is our mortgage payoff goal. At the beginning of the year, I shared that we had a goal of paying off $12,000 of our mortgage in 2019. That’s $1,000 a month towards the mortgage. Below is a list of the principal paid off for each month:

January: $982.11
February: $984.56
March: $987.31
April: $989.47
TOTAL - $3,943.45

We are continuing to pay the minimum mortgage payment and have not put any extra towards the mortgage this year. I had contemplated throwing an extra $100 in April, but the purchase of a new computer and my wife’s car breaking down pushed that decision until later in the year.

Goal #2 Update:

Goal #2 is our goal to save over $68,000 over the course of 2019. Below is a look at our progress of our savings over the course of April:

April was by far the largest amount saved in a month for our family this year. We definitely won’t hit over $10,000 again in 2019. We were able to save this much, because we invested in our daughters college funds. The $4,026 listed in the match column was given to us by my wife’s parents strictly for the purpose of investing in a college fund.

The other $1,974 was invested from an account that my wife and I had saved money into over the course of 2018. Take away our college fund investing and we invested $4,866.57 in our normal savings. This is right on pace with the rest of our monthly savings in 2019.

Below is a look at our savings over the entire year:

With the major jump in savings from March to April, we are much closer to hitting our goal in 2019. I estimate with no changes to our current amount of savings and the inclusion of our college fund investing, we will save $63,211 in 2019. This number is just $5,000 under our goal for 2019.

Now, I said with no changes. There is a chance for changes this summer. Since I am home, I can stay home with the girls most of the summer. This will save us around $4,000. I can use this savings in 3 ways:

Invest more in our emergency fund. During the first 5 months of the year, we have not put any money in our emergency savings. It will need to be replenished, because we used some funds for the repair of my wife’s car and the purchase of our new computer.
Increase my 457B contribution over the summer. Currently, my 457b contributions are $2,400 under our goal of $12,000. I could increase just for the summer to bridge the gap between the $2,400 difference.
We can use the money and throw a little extra on the mortgage. This will guarantee that we hit our $12,000 principal payoff in 2019.

Even with the savings from daycare, we still have a major expense that will slow down our possible savings. Our dishwasher has completely quit working. It won’t even start anymore. Previously, we were having issues with it not cleaning completely. Now, it just won’t work.

Goal #3 Update:

This year, with our increase in pre-tax savings, we increased our savings goal from 30% to 40%. In March, we came up short in hitting our savings goal of 40%. However, a good April saw us hit our savings goal plus some! Check out our spending in April (it is crazy how much we spent)!

Our savings rate jumped to 48% in April. Now, 48% beats our savings goal for 2019, but is it really good enough when you save over $10,000 in a month? No, it’s not! That means we spent over $10,000 in April. That’s crazy.

Where did all of this spending come from?

New Computer ($1,900)
- I believe that you should buy a good quality computer that will last you.
- I learned this from experience. When we got married, my wife and I bought 2 computers. One expensive computer for my wife and a cheap $300 computer for myself. My computer lasted approximately 1 1/2 years, whereas my wife’s computer lasted almost 6 years.
Auto Repair ($1,400)
Daycare (an extra $485), because there were 5 Mondays in April

That right there doesn’t explain all of our spending, but explains where $3,785 of our extra spending went to.

2019 Savings Rates:

January: 34%
February: 40%
March: 34%
April: 48%
Year-to-Date: 40%

With the increase in savings in April, we increased our yearly savings to 40%. This means that we are on pace to meeting our goal. The most important thing that we need to do now is maintain our savings throughout the rest of the year.

What are your thoughts on our savings goals? How are you doing in reaching your goals for 2019? Are you falling behind? What do you need to do to get back on track?