Every Journey Begins With the First Step

For the past few days I have been scouring the internet for money saving guides, specifically, how to save $100,000.  Unfortunately, the only guides I was able to find were pretty generic in nature which is why I decided to document my journey to $100,000.  I figure there are other people out there that would be interested in the day to day decision making and financial planning that would get one from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands.

It is said that the first $100,000 is usually the hardest; while I’m sure there is some truth to that statement no goal in life is unattainable with a solid actionable set of goals.  Begin with the end in mind.

In celebration of my very first steps of my journey I took some time to aggregate all of my accounts using Mint.com. 

Yes, that is real money, albeit a modest amount that is comprised of:

• A checking and savings account at Chase
• A checking and savings account at Charles Schwab
• A non-qualified brokerage account at Charles Schwab
• A growing collection of assorted one ounce silver bullion
• Newly established savings accounts at ING Direct
• An empty account at GoldMoney.com

I also figured that I should create a budget to get a tighter grip on my spending.

One key aspect that my savings plan lacked was segregation of funds, I actually got the idea after trolling around on iwillteachyoutoberich.com

And there you have it, a fully disclosed savings plan with the exception of account numbers.  It did take a bit of effort to open (surprisingly ING let me fund each account with $1.00), link and determine the dates and amounts for the auto transfers to take place from my primary checking account, but now that it is done I have a pretty sophisticated (relative to most people) savings plan in place.   If anything, my net worth will grow much faster than it has in the past year.

How can I fail with such a strong foundation in place? Is my savings strategy similar to yours?  Let me know!