Anatomy of a Bad Month
May 26th, 2009 by Nut
May isn’t over yet but it’s already been brutal for our budget. M and I typically save a fixed amount of our paychecks every month but this month has definitely not gone as planned. Here are some of the unexpected things we had to pony up for that have thrown our financial house into disrepair:
- Bikes: We both got bicycles and I ended up going way over budget on my end. Oops.
- Anniversary: Yesterday was our one-year anniversary and I wanted to do something special. Which we did. It was awesome and I wouldn’t take it back for anything. But it wasn’t cheap. Oh and to everyone that’s curious: yes, it was a surprise.
- Random: This is the scariest part of missing our budget this month—I couldn’t even tell you what else we spent on that put us over the top.
Some Thoughts on a Bad Month: I know that trying to explain away such a bad month (which is still bad even with the extra paycheck that comes with a five-Friday month) is probably bad form, but I’m going to do it anyway. The purpose of money is supposed to be to enjoy our lives. We’ve already gotten a great return on our bike purchase (it’s fun, it’s exercise, and it gets us outside) and our anniversary trip was a blast. When we have kids we won’t be able to just pick up and go like we did this weekend. The more I thought about it, the more I felt we should just go and have fun—budget be damned.
We did not dip into our down-payment fund and we didn’t go into debt to do it. That’s good enough for me.
