Challenge starting balance: $9,880.47
Plus:
- weekly EF savings x 5 $178.45
- Safeway everyday rewards $10.00
- digital change $11.52
- B's credit card repayment $180.00
- B's tax savings $463.33
Challenge closing balance: $10,723.77

Around this time last year, I tallied up the annual challenge, and have decided that this will be all the snowflakes and savings for December month, and to finish up this year's challenge.

Last year we saved $10,014; this year we saved $10,724 so we had a slight increase .

I have already updated the sidebar to show what was saved for various categories but here it is also:
- Mortgage repayments $1729.46
- EF savings $3000.04
- New car fund $150.00
- Holiday fund $485.00
- Debt repayment $3,747.40
- B's tax savings $1,329.99

Of the savings for this year, savings that went directly to us were mortgage repayments, EF savings, new car fund and holiday fund totaling $5,364.50. (If I was to include the amount saved for the UK holiday of $4500 then this total would be higher but did not include it in the challenge. It is important to note though that while around half of our savings for the challenge did not go directly to us, I was able to take an expensive holiday also so it is not all bad)

Savings that went to other people were the debt repayment and B's tax savings totaling $5,077.39.

There is also within the challenge $281 unaccounted for, however I think a big part of this could have been savings for Christmas.

The only debt we have left other than the mortgage is B's credit card debt of around $2700 and we will be carrying some credit card debt (of around $500 I imagine) on my card coming into the new year for Christmas presents. So we're not doing too badly there compared to last year.

Financially I think my new car savings were replaced by B's tax savings as this has a due date and because it is so large has become more important.

My new year's goals of 1 bottle of wine per week plus keeping the kitchen bench clear every night didn't happen. Oh well. I'm ok with this.

Moving into 2017, I will work out the savings allocation soon but my goals will be:
- have $1000 saved up for Christmas by December by adding digital change and snowflakes to a certain bank account
- move the cash portion of the EF into a high interest bank account and restructure our bank accounts
- create a separate spreadsheet for snowflakes and do one savings & snowflakes blog entry each month

Looking at what we will be able to save directly to us compared to going to other people, we will have debt repayments of $2160 to B's card as planned, and $1390 tax repayments, so that will be $3,545 going to other people. This will mean that if the challenge is roughly the same that the amount we will receive directly to us will increase to $6,455, which is an improvement.

2016 has been great, looking forward to 2017! I will most likely post a bit more before end of year though.