Where's My Gazelle?

Not sure what I have to update really.

The Financial Peace University class has been going well. I do wish that the discussions were a bit more personal though. No one discusses their actual amount of their debts, or their budgets, envelopes, etc. I understand that not everyone wants to share this kind of "personal" information, but I think everyone would get more out of the discussions if they talked about specifics.

It has been good for me to focus on finances for a solid 2 hours every week. In the past I easily spent 2 hours a day focusing on finances, but I find that I'm doing it less so now. So the FPU class is good for that.

Since we aren't doing the Debt Snowball right now (and rather putting that money into Savings in anticipation of "storm clouds") I am finding that I don't get that same sense of satisfaction of paying large chunks towards a goal. Our savings balance goes up and down due to saving money from large commission months and using the money for low commission months - so it's not like the savings account is steadily growing. The ups and downs just aren't as gratifying, and I fear that we have not been sticking to the budget as closely as we should.

I think that maybe I should separate our savings. One account for money that goes in and out of our checking account as needed, and another that is for the more long term savings and rainy day/snowball. Most people would probably keep the in and out money right in their checking account - but I have found that that doesn't work well for us. If the money is in our checking account we tend to spend it. I find it works much better for us to only keep exactly what we will need for the month in their (zero based budget).

The benefit of having another savings account that would just continue to grow would be that we would get a much better sense of accomplishment I think, by seeing a balance go up and up (in the same way that it was so gratifying to see our debt balance go down and down).

I don't know. I just know that I'd like to get some of that gazelle intensity back.