This past weekend I found glaring holes in our family budget. Although we keep a pretty tight budget, including a wee bit of fudge room, we had a major expense that should not have been such a surprise. Well, I guess the surprise was not that we were going to spend the money, just figuring out where in the budget that money came from.
The major expense was buying cloths. I needed a new suite (one of my two suites has finally worn out) and my wife needed some summer cloths. Not just a case of want, this was actually nee. But where do you find room in the budget for cloths? Perhaps this is just my male side shining brightly, but the idea of budgeting for cloths is foreign to me. I hate shopping and try to limit buying cloths to once a year. An ongoing budget item for something that I hate?!?! Well I figured out that I have to get used to the idea.
Solution! Yeah, I need to add a line item to our budget to save money for cloths. Not budgeting for them means that these kinds of expenses will continue to create budgeting issues and ultimately may lead to a derailing of our debt killing if we have to keep making allowances to purchase things like cloths that are not regular, but frequent and required.
So how much do we build into the budget? How ever much we budget for these will lower the amount we pay down our credit cards each month because that is where all extra money in our budget goes. Is $100 a month in the budget enough for cloths for both my wife and I? We already have full wardrobes so we should only be replacing stuff as it wears out. Am I just way off base about cloths?
How have you tackled these budgetary challenges???
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
RD-
I had the same problem about forgetting to add things to my budget. The item I forgot about my dog’s expenses. It was really just his food. But it was still frustrating having to add that on to the budget and take away the $10 a month from my savings.
Best regards,
Maeghen
I have the same problem, especially on things I pay quarterly or biannually like insurance and vacations. I budget for these by looking at my past 12 months in Quicken and then averaging the expense over 12 months. Then, I reduce my other monthly expenses until the budget is balanced.