When I analyze the year so far, we're over budget by about $1700. (The way I do this is to use numbers for last year for the remaining months, which gives me an overall year to look at, but it means I still have August through December to "correct" things).
The $1700 is still less than the surprise medical bills I had in the Spring, which means that we're working on getting those paid for by shifting other budget items, and that makes me feel good. Basically, those medical bills account for the budget bust for this year.
So I looked at how August through December might go in order to make a plan.
Obviously, and easy way to get the budget back in order would be to stop contributing to our IRAs for two months, but I don't want to do that; we have money in the bank (EF) and so we don't need to do this. We can whittle at the $1700 instead.
So, the plan:
- limit cash for D to $40/month
- don't buy any new yarn (knitting budget down to zero)
- maybe skip the Nutcracker this year (just talked to F and she is very willing to make a less expensive substitution)
- F has a lot of new clothes from Grandma, and her winter coat fits and so do winter boots, she has the next size up on soccer cleats, so I don't think we need much for her clothing budget this winter.
- work on grocery costs (don't have to reduce much from last year)
When I do this in my excel spreadsheet, I end up with a $3,000 surplus! Yeah!
Analyzing the Year so Far
August 14th, 2014 at 02:21 pm
August 14th, 2014 at 05:04 pm 1408032245
Being pushed over budget by surgery and it's $ 2,500 deductible as well as increased costs for electric, food, vehicle operation and maintenance makes your $ 1,700 overage totally understandable. Do you add in 4% for inflation? What value do you ascribe for grandmother's wardrobe gift to F? Is it totally fair to crunch it down to a $ 3K overage? would you add $ 1K each to D, F and yourself? Is the holiday activity schedule published for a Nutcracker substitution?
...just some random thoughts
August 14th, 2014 at 05:15 pm 1408032949