A month of success :week 4

I'm declaring this month a success! 

1st of all, I'm so proud that I've started tracking our spending, and have been working to reduce my day to day spending, that is a huge accomplishment in itself. 

2nd. I'm so proud that I've gotten other people to start thinking about saving money and working towards their financial goals. 

3rd. It is great to know where our money goes and to begin thinking about money in terms that we can begin to control.  

4th. I looked at our savings account and saw a wonderful thing.  While we deposited money to the account as we do every month with our automatic deposit, we DIDN'T take any money out of the account. That means for the month of January 2012, we spent less money than we made. So far, we have a profit for the month that will help us out somewhere down the line. That is a huge accomplishment. If we do it every month, we'll have created a substantial growth in our saving account.   

5th. We were able to track spending and make cuts along the way. For the month, we only went "over" in one category, "Gasoline/Fuel" but the amount over was.... $4.17. Not bad.  

6th.  The other category we wanted to boost was Charitable Giving.  The bar graph shows our lameness, but it doesn't show the amount we donated this weekend at our church, nor does it show a donation made to our charity of the month Braille Without Borders.  This organization is dedicated to helping people in developing countries learn Braille in order to be able to go to school and be considered helpful members of society.
To learn more about Braille Without Borders, read the amazing book "My path leads to Tibet" which tells the history of the project and about the way the blind founder, Sabriye, dealt with becoming blind.  Further she wrote “Tashis neue Welt” and the latest book is titled  “Das siebte Jahr” ("The seventh year") which tells the story of Sabriyes and Paul's seventh year in Tibet.You can also watch the movie "Blindsight" which tells the story of 6 of Sabriye's blind orphans and mountain climber Erik Weihenmayer, who attempted to climb Lhakpa Ri, a 23,000 feet high peak next to Mount Everest.


Braille without borders is an excellent organization that we are proud to support. They are working to empower people, change lives, and promote life skills for people who have been cast aside by society.  If you are interested in learning more about them or making a donation, you can check out their website http://braillewithoutborders.org/ENGLISH/index.html.  To receive tax credit for your donation (501 c 3) you actually need to write out a check for them.  Writing a person check is touching and personal way to support an organization. While writing out a check, you can also write them a letter telling them how you admire the work they do, its another way to fortify their work.

We are quite proud of our month, and would love to hear how you did, if you were able to save a little extra this month, pay down a loan a little more, or give to a cause you believe in. Please leave your success stories in the comments below!