HAVING LITTLE THINGS TO SAVE FOR

FINDING MONEY TO SAVE FOR THINGS

I was thinking about how each week when I finalize our expense and how they compared to our budget, there are times that we come in under budget and have a little bit of money that was not used on the categories it was budgeted for. In the past that money would have just become available to spend on anything.  And we really wouldn’t have put too much thought to where it went. I was thinking about how much of a difference it can make in your budget to have little short-term things to save for when you find little bits of extra money here and there.

TAKE TIME TO THINK OF WHERE ANY EXTRA DOLLARS SHOULD GO

These don’t have to be things to achieve financial goals. They can be that if that is what you want to do with the money.  And that is fine because you are still making a decision on where the money goes. But those extra dollars can also just be for things that you might like to or think you might need to spend your money on outside of what you are already putting aside for on a regular basis. It really goes back to being intentionally with your money and making a choice at the end of the week what you want to do with any budgeted money that wasn’t spent. It’s about having a plan for it, weather that be paying down extra-debt, adding to your emergency fund, or putting aside for some of the little things that I am going to talk about in this post.

PAY ATTENTION TO THE THINGS YOU SOMETIMES WANT BUT DON’T ALWAYS HAVE A BUDGET FOR

If we already being pretty intentional in our long-term financial goals, it’s OK to take some of the money you might have budgeted for weekly spending and put it aside for some other things. I am not talking about large amounts of money.  I’m not talking about any significant amount of money.  For example, say you budgeted $1,000 for a car repair and didn’t need it, I would say reallocate that to your major goals, pay down debt, put it in savings, or retirement, etc.

What I am talking about here is say the end of the week comes and you didn’t need gas this week because you just didn’t have to do that much driving, so maybe you have $40 extra from this week’s budget.  Instead of just letting whatever happen to that money, think about what you would like to put it aside for.

SOME THINGS I MIGHT SAVE UP FOR

• K-cups for our Keurig machine – We have a regular coffee maker, and the k-cups are kind of a treat, so every once in a while, if I have $5 or $10 extra dollars in a week, I’ll set it aside for the next time we need to restock
• Taking the kids to Trader Joes (they sometimeS ask me to take them there to pick out some snacks and things)
• Having a pizza night if we end up having a crazy day and I can’t cook
• Family fun – maybe we are out and the kids ask for ice cream, or they want to rent a movie on amazon, or get a drink at star bucks (or dunkin donuts now seems to be their new favorite)
• These are all those little occasional treats that don’t cost too much, but that I don’t really like to use our regular weekly budget for so it’s nice to put a little aside for things like this when you can.

ADDING TO YOUR MISCELLANEOUS FUND

There is always that miscellaneous fund that I always try to add to! This is kind of for those random things we need to purchase that we weren’t really planning on specifically – usually this might be something like a new phone charger, new chip clips because ours magically disappear over time, new storage bin because I was keeping our Easter decorations in a plastic bag, non-slip furniture pads for our new (2^nd hand) couches that have been sliding all over the family room floor, new food storage containers because we kept running out of them too quickly. For all of those random little purchases that might come up, it’s nice to have some money put aside that you can pull from without having to use your current week’s budget.

DIVINGING YOUR SAVINGS AMONGST VARIOUS BUCKETS

You can split up a little here and there maybe $5 to one thing, $10 to another, it’s just about what you want to have the money available for.  Maybe one week you used a lot of miscellaneous money, so you put it all there.  It’s just about taking the time to think about it. Sometimes it’s even just a matter of adding more money to next week’s budget. For example, if I happen to have a week where my grocery spending was really low, but I know there are some extra items that I am going to want to buy next week, I’ll save some of that money that wasn’t spent on groceries this week and then I’ll have it to get something extra next week.

This is when I might buy some things that aren’t part of our regular budget – maybe frozen snack type things that we don’t really need for the week, that are nice to have around sometimes. Even if you are already budgeting for everything you need, it’s always nice to have a little extra set aside for some things!

Thanks so much for checking in! If you would like to hear the podcast version of this topic to check out Lola’s Frugal Life Podcast! Also, be sure to check out my other blog posts on this site!

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