Hi everyone - I'm a new poster to the forums, but I've been a GRS and forum reader for about four years now. I love reading the financial fitness journals and wanted to start one of my own to help me track our progress toward our goal

I'm 27, and my husband and I have very different views about money, but we've been married long enough that we've both learned to meet in the middle. Although neither of us care about things like having a big house or TV or a fancy car, he can be quite irresponsible with money. If he sees something he wants his eyes light up - "Oooh, Shiny!" and he doesn't think until he has it. He also has expensive hobbies. I'm the opposite - I love to save on daily expenses so that we can put away most of our money for big, fun things (we've taken several overseas trips in the last five years - this is why we don't have a deposit already saved).

Our goal for the year is ambitious - we want to save $20k by December. This is for a deposit on our dream home. Currently we live in Auckland, New Zealand, but we want to buy a plot of land in the countryside surrounding the city and build a castle on it. Our dream is to run a smallholding and more or less live off the land.

We intent to do the majority of the labour on the house ourselves and live on site till it's completed to save money.

Current Financial Situation

Income
Me: $750 fortnight for part time job
Husband: $2800 month
I also earn between $1000-3000 a month in freelance income as a writer (I work 2 days a week from home). These checks come irregularly.

Savings:
House account: $4000 (saved over the last two months - was 0 because of emergancy car repairs)
Emergency: $800 - waiting for a payment from a client to bring it up to $1000
Travel/Car fund: $400
Retirement savings: Me - $1200, him - $5 000 - post house, this is our next issue to address.

Debt
CC: $350 - waiting for another payment which will clear this tomorrow. Have only carried this balance for 2 days - don't normally carry balance but payment is late.
Husband also has Student Loan of $10k but this is tax free and will be paid off in about 3 years. We kind of treat it like a 2nd tax.

Budget:
Rent - $400 a week (so $1600-2000 a month - in NZ you pay weekly)
Power: fluctuates - currently $150 a month because it's winter
Internet: $65 month
Insurance: $75 a month (house and car - 3rd party)
Food: $600 a month
Lawns: $60 month
We both have health insurance (free on my family's plan) and cellphones (free through his company) Gas is $200 a month but comes out of my pre-tax income so I haven't included it.
Husband has a "toy" budget of $500 a month: The process of helping him to reduce this is slow going

My husband has a budget of $100 a week to cover his band practice space, model train group fees, occasional snacks and hobby purchases. My budget is $50 and I often don't spend it. What I don't spend goes into a little jar on my desk and I use this money for Christmas presents/going out for dinner, etc. Anytime we want to have a meal out, etc, this comes out of these budgets or the jar.

Basically, I throw every spare dollar at our savings, which can be between $1000-$4000 a month depending on how much freelance work I have. I'm hoping with a good run we'll be able to make it to $20k by the end of the year.

EF is back up to $1000! Still waiting on payment of a couple more jobs to take house savings up. If I get paid for them all next week we should be up to around $5000.

House account: $4000
Emergency: $1000
Travel/Car fund: $400
Retirement savings: Me - $1250, him - $5 000
CC: $0

So on saturday we went to look at a plot of land that's been on the market for a year. We set one foot through the gate and fell in love. This place is beyond amazing - 3x the size we thought we could get, and we might be able to live on it in a converted shed till we have the money for a house, meaning our initial mortgage will be smaller than we thought. It was a silly thing to do because we don't have enough money! Grrrr.

By my calculations in three months' time we will have the $12,500 we need to get the loan to buy the land. We just have to hope no one puts an offer in before us. But if we don't get it - it wasn't meant to be

House account: $4600 (got paid for a writing job!)
Emergency: $1000
Travel/Car fund: $400
Retirement savings: Me - $1295, him - $5 000
CC: $0