4/20/2008

Our Budget Busters


CindyS over at Oh My Aching Debts threw down the challenge: Post your top 5 budget busters - then tag 3 other bloggers to do the same. I wasn't asked to participate, but after reading Ana's post over at Debt-FREE Revolution, I thought I'd chime in.


  1. Rising food prices. I really hate to say it, but the general cost of food has been blind siding us a lot lately. Seems like the price of everything is up these days. I understand that inflation does exist and that prices will go up, but these increases are crazy. I even swore off of cold cereal for about 4 months because of the price increases. This one is really hard to admit, as at one time, we were the family of three living off of a grocery budget of $250 per month. Current food budget for the four of us is $400-450.
  2. Forgetting my lunch. I am quite well known for skipping lunch out with friends in favor of a nice bowl of leftovers. No complains - I enjoy our cooking, even a day or two after. But two or three times a month, I'll find that I've forgotten my lunch at home. Ug. This usually means lunch at the cafeteria. Not that it's expensive, just not in the budget.
  3. A great deal on ________ . There's lots of ways to fill in the blank, and that's the problem - clothes, home improvement products, garage/estate sale finds, what-have-you. We're not phased by retailers' "Whatever Sale! This week only!" Whatever is right. But when you can get a $600 sink for $30, or that garage sale has clothes in your size - new or nearly new - for pennies on the dollar, how do you say, "No"? Many times, we don't.
  4. Unplanned trips. We've had a handful of family members in and out of the hospital over the past couple months. If you haven't noticed, gas doesn't grow on trees. In fact, quite the opposite.
  5. Unexpected medical bills. I've spoke, at length, about our crummy health insurance. Well, we planned for the bills from the birth of our second, but the tumor that she had removed was not planned for. It has been hammering our emergency fund, and replenishing our emergency fund has been busting our budget.
My wife is a budgeting ninja, so these rarely knock us too far off track. But some of these do occasionally earn me some glares during the budget committee meetings. Ouch!

Some other posts in this challenge:

We'll tag:
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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for taking up the challenge :) And I can totally relate to most of those myself, and have had to adjust the budget for food and gas. After this past week's gas price hike, looks like I'll have to adjust yet again...

Anonymous said...

A Great Deal is usually not one of my budget busters because I rarely ever go "shopping" but on a trip to Lowes this weekend, I found the PERFECT size rug for my living room. It was on clearance, marked down from $198 to $50. Great deal! But I have to take that $50 out of someplace and their is only two spots that have wiggle room... food and savings. Guess I will be eating cheap this month.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the mention. The unplanned medical bills is a good one. I should have included that one in mine!

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