Great upate - slow and steady wins the race. Totally agree letting that pork shoulder cook slowly (had to throw in some food metaphor). 
Just about right. 2 yrs 700 is usually where most get to. Sorry about that late. That stopped it in the tracks. Auto-pay! Dont want anymore.
I'll second superquid's suggestion to use a spreadsheet. I use one for all my incoming money and expenditures and get pretty detailed with it. I get paid semi monthly so I break everything down into first half and second half of the month columns.You may not need to go as detailed as this but hopefully this is a good reference point:
- Current balance in checking
- Current account balance in both savings accounts
- Money set aside for each savings that hasn't been transferred yet (if applicable)
- Estimate of my rent plus utilities. I use a figure that's at least $50 more than the highest total I've seen and just cut that in half for the first half of the month (note utilities are not in renters names)
- Each other recurring bill is listed out in which ever half it's invoiced. Once it has been billed to a credit card/debit card/pay pal etc it gets zeroed as it's already accounted for.
- Credit cards are listed out next with posted and pending. For pending always make sure to include any tips that aren't already included and any fuel purchases that may be greater than the initial authorization (all my gas purchases say $1 until they post)
- Next is the total of all non rent/utility bills
- Total of all bills
- Checking account buffer (I'm currently keeping a $175 buffer in the account separate from any savings and gradually bumping that up little by little)
- Remaining balance after everything is accounted for.
- Number of days left in period
- Avg spend allowable per day
I'll typically update the spreadsheet most days but I'm not anal about making sure it's daily (typically 5-6 times a week I update it). As I mentioned previously this may be more detailed some may need but it works well for me.
