Well, the time has come to pick the winners of our What are You Saving For Contest.

Thank you to all our submissions as I truly enjoyed reading about how each of you are taking action to move you closer to your savings goals.

From saving for weddings, vacations, world travel, retirement to skydivng, “Honeymoon Funds” & “Man/Woman Caves” all answers were appreciated. So many great answers. I feel I have learned a ton and I thank you again for your sharing.

All that being said, I have come up with what I feel are an excellent top 3 of winners:

First Place and Winner of a Bank Full of Money is Walid Saleh

My dream is to build a technology focused school to help prepare students in 3rd world countries for today and tomorrow’s jobs. The school will teach them advanced technical knowledge that will help them succeed in their fields and eventually modernize the country through their efforts. In today’s job market having a basic education is not enough and this school will give people the edge and the confidence they need. I’ve been saving for this by putting $100/month aside, but I will need much more money than that. I started a company (www.getsphinx.com) and I will take a percentage of the profits to fund this project. Wish me luck and I would love to hear your feedback. Thank you.

Thank you Walid for sharing your vision. I applaud your passion for service and feel one of our duties as humans to help those in need. Your project sounds like it is going to impact many students in 3rd world countries and since I have an affinity for helping children I am happy to pick you as the winner of our April contest.

Second Place and Winner of a Bank to save for her dreams is Michelle Ressell 

Climbing to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa has been my dream for years. I want to see and touch “the snows of Kilimanjaro” before they disappear. The flight to Africa is expensive, and when you toss in the climbing guide fees of a safe outfitter you’re looking at a lot of coin! Speaking of “coin,” I save each and every coin I receive as change from a purchase, never spending a single one. I place them in a jar labeled “Honeymoon Fund,” and deposit the change in an interest bearing savings account every few months. Birthday gift checks, Christmas bonus checks from work, and any dollar bills I can spare make their way into the jar as well. Over our 15 years of marriage, the honeymoon fund has taken us to Australia, Costa Rica and soon to Kilimanjaro! Who said you can’t have more than one honeymoon?

I love the idea of a “Honeymoon Fund” and how you have used it to experience some amazing adventures. The main point I think we can all take from this is that LITTLE BY LITTLE you can make huge progress. Not spending your change is a great way to make small incremental steps towards your goal of climbing Mount Kiliminjaro. Once you add bonus checks & birthday gift checks you are well on your way to trekking that mountain.

Third Place and winner of an Expect Success Book is Kim Miles 

My husband and I are saving for a home renovation, including landscaping, all bathrooms, the kitchen and new flooring throughout. While are home is in good shape, we want to create the home of our dreams. The method we are using comes from Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Make Over are founded on common sense spending and saving! Our first step is getting completely out of debt…including paying off our house. We have been focused thus far and made amazing progress. We reduced our payoff plan from 2 years to 18 months because of our “gazelle intensity” with getting out of debt. The saving step is more about common sense spending which is don’t buy unless you have the CASH to buy it. So what that means for us is that we have set our home renovation goal, and are developing a savings plan and a schedule for purchasing materials and hiring subcontractors. We are operating as GPS systems in that we know where we are going, we are on the road to get there and as things shift us off course, we make the necessary corrections to get us to our destination. Discipline is key and I am finding discipline to be rewarding at all levels!!

 This is a great example of what is the first step in any savings goal or dream. Actually, it applies for all areas of our life and it is to HAVE A PLAN. Clearly, Kim has (with her husband) come up with a specific plan to achieve their renovation goals and I have little doubt it will happen. I love the GPS analogy.

Thank you all again for your wonderful thoughts. I have definitely learned some new ideas and am excited to apply some to my life.

Be Free!

David Shoup
Instructor