Life Happens

I have been trying so hard to stick to a budget lately. We do really well on some things, and then others we fail miserably…EVERY MONTH!  There are those unexpected leaches that come by every few weeks that absolutely kill our budget.

Theoretically, we SHOULD have been able to pay off Todd’s vehicle by the end of October.  Now, I think we’ll be lucky to pay it off by the end of November. 

Life happens!  We got a puppy (our own fault) to which we have invested a good $500 into right now between 3 vet bills and flea & tick medication for the next 6 months.  The cold weather is coming, and Todd bought snow tires for his vehicle off of Craigslist a few weeks ago for $200.  This is about $300 less than if we were to get these tires from TireRack.com or WalMart/Sam’s Club.  Todd is building Squiggy his own home outside for the Winter, so that has been about $125 (and he recycled a lot of items we had lying around.) Our water softener was on the fritz – there goes $190 (mostly in labor costs!) Normally Todd can fix anything – this was not fixable without a professional.  Oh, not to mention going out of town for a wedding we found out about in August.  There is 2 nights in a hotel, wedding gift, gas money and money for food!  That will be a $300 weekend!  As you can see, these sporadic expenses add up quick!   Those “little” expenses alone added up to $1315!  That is 20% of the payoff balance for the car! 

Oh, did I mention my husband wants a chlorination system for our home?  It will be $1,000.  I want to put it off until next year, but he is pretty adamant about getting it before winter.  Oy!

Can you say beans and rice, and rice and beans for a little while?  I think we’ve only spent $75 this month on groceries thus far, so I’m not sure how much lower we can go on that budget!

How do you stay within your budget?