This little piggy has glasses almost like my Morgan! Just a different colour! Pig looks soo smart, doesn't it?!
In April our budget will be dropping by $100.00/month as Mya will turn 6 and we'll no longer be eligible for a supplement we receive for her. I think when April rolls around i'll probably have to cut our Emergency Savings in half and use the other half of it for our Christmas savings in order to make up for the loss as i'd like to keep the rest of our budget "as is" if possible, and there's not a lot of leeway in our budget to cut out $100.00 unfortunately.
So, i've decided to dole out our Variable budget a little differently starting in February with the goal of building up a "slush fund" for smaller incidentals so we always have extra "cash on hand". We always end up needing cash for dental appointments, prescription meds, eyewear, unexpected bills, extra charity/giving, gifts, special activities, clothing, etc...
Just look at how much fun they're having paying bills!! I too, want to have fun paying my bills!! *eye roll*
Until April there will be $20.00 more in our budget, I think i'm going to throw that into our main EF to help me hit $3K asap. Then when our income drops, that'll replace $80.00 of the $100, plus i'll have to find another $20 somewhere in our budget to make it up. I'll probably just bump down the entertainment by $5.00/week to be honest.
Anyways, I've decided to take our Clothing & Gifts category budget and each week put that money straight over into our Money Master account. So each week $40.00 will be put into that account, as sometimes when I have that money sitting in our budget, we'll buy something simply because the money is there whether we need it or not! A cute pair of jeans on clearance for $10? Sure!! (Even though I have probably 15 prs hanging in my closet!) Obviously a habit i've mostly broken now, but I really need to stay on the "straight n' narrow!!
Little gifts here & there add up! Someone just had a baby and you were invited to a surprise baby shower? Wouldn't it be nice to have a few dollars set aside for things like these!
I'm hoping that we'll build up a nice little slush fund account to use that won't affect our EF the way we have been having to dig into it for this & that over the last couple years. This way when we need to use the money for something small & non emergency related, there will be money to use.
The game plan is to let this account continue to build and when we receive reimbursements, the money will be transferred right back to this account. There will be a steady stream of money continually going in, and probably out of this account, but it will give us a lot more leeway in our budget and I won't be scrambling to cover something unexpected, feel guilty for digging into our EF, or having to rearrange the entire months budget every time something comes up.
Oops!! That's not going to go very far, now is it!? lol!!
I'm starting this "slush" fund with the $400.00 that's currently sitting in there from a Blue Cross dental appointment refund a bit of extra money that was sitting in our main account.
Our Emergency Fund has $2000.00 currently sitting in it. We have money set aside in hubbys work account that we've been saving and are going to move over to our main account next week to divvy up. We're going to add $500.00 to our main EF, bringing up that account up to $2500.00. We're going to add $200.00 to our "slush" fund account, bringing that up to $600.00. I'm still waiting on Morgan's eyewear reimbursement, and I just sent in a bunch of receipts from the last round of our prescriptions. So once that all comes in, it should bulk up that account a bit more too.
You only want to use this in a true emergency!! A trip to the mall with friends doesn't really count! ;)
Overall starting in Februrary we'll have $280.00 cash to use for the week... most of this going into grocery & misc. items. The "fun" money will probably accumulate most weeks, especially in the cold winter months as I tend to be a "homebody". The $50 misc. budget is to cover any household items we may need like haircuts, health & beauty items, OTC meds, etc...
Here's how I have our variable income allotted for each week:
$50.00 goes into our Emergency Fund. $30 of that will be accounted towards our EF, $20.00 of that will be for Christmas savings. $20.00 goes towards Morgan's guitar lessons. After we set aside our savings each week we have $320.00 left which I have budgeted as follows:
- Food: $180.00
- Entertainment: $30.00
- Misc: $50.00
- Clothing: $20.00
- Gifts: $20.00 (birthdays, holidays *except xmas, etc...)
- Organic Meat Savings: $20.00
Do you have a "slush fund" for smaller incidentals in your budget? Or do you have a different way to cover the "little things" that pop up every now & then?
