by Ashley
Our month of lower income has unfortunately coincided with lots of extra necessary expenses.
Sigh.
First, I had to pay for my annual life insurance premium. Remember, the full amount was $207. I was able to use some money from my “annual expenses” savings account, but I still had to spend $94 from my “other” budget (out of a total $150 budgeted for monthly “other” expenses). Note – my husband finally received his paperwork saying all his stuff has been approved, but he is STILL waiting on the final contract. I don’t know why there are so many steps involved in life insurance coverage, but we will owe another few hundred for his premium when the contract arrives. Even if we wait to pay it next month, its a big expense.
Second, my daughters decided to have a little developmental-milestone growth spurt this weekend. They already knew how to open some doors (depending on the door knob), but within a 12-hour span they have learned how to open ALL the doors in our house AND have learned to climb out of their cribs. Why does everything happen at once??? Gulp! We knew this would happen eventually, but we’ve just been putting it on the back burner. This weekend we went to Walmart and stocked up on the door knob handle things (like these) that make it difficult for toddlers to open doors. Those were cheap. Know what’s NOT cheap? The conversion kit that is used to convert a crib into a toddler bed. For those without toddlers who have no idea what I’m talking about….when kids start climbing out of their cribs, the conventional wisdom is that it’s time to convert to toddler beds. To do so, you take off the front part of the crib, and replace it with a small safety rail thing to keep the kid from accidentally rolling out of bed in his/her sleep. Here’s an example (image from this site)
That little dinky piece of wood on the front costs in the range of 80-125 bucks! Times 2, since we have twins.
And our final extra expense = clothes. It was my goal to get through this full blogging year (March 2013-March 2014) without purchasing any clothing. I did get a skirt from Nordstrom Rack using a gift card, but I haven’t paid for an article of clothing during this whole time. Unfortunately, I don’t know how much longer that can last. I don’t know if any other women can relate, but I have a closet and dresser FULL of clothes that I don’t wear. A lot of these clothes are from my pre-pregnancy body (which I have mentioned was smaller than my current body, lol). Anyway, I only have a couple of things in my current size and, now that I’ve been my current size for 2 years, these things are getting worn out! It’s not as noticeable with shirts, but my pants/capris have seen better days. The pair of capri pants I am currently wearing have already been mended to fix a hole that had developed along the seam in the crotch. Wellllll, I have just noticed that the hole is back….right next to the area where I had mended them. I guess this means the fabric is just worn out. I could mend again, but I think it’s just a matter of time until I officially retire these pants. I have been making an honest, concerted effort to try to loose some weight (my hope is to get back to pre-pregnancy weight, which is why I haven’t sold my old stuff – I really want to get back to that place, and then I’ll have a full wardrobe I can pick from!). I’ve had some success in losing a little weight, but I still have a ways to go and I’m going to need pants in the meantime.
What to do, what to do….
Basically, the budget is blown. I’m really trying to avoid any extra spending this month because we’re living on last month’s income and only have a set amount of money to work with. But then all of these expenses get pushed to next month and the budget is going to be crazy-blown for October! Just the life insurance, alone, blows the budget. Add on the baby purchases and a pair of pants and we’re donezo!
I see the pants as the least immediate need, but the toddler crib conversion needs to happen asap. One of my girls has already gotten hurt by falling when she was trying to climb out of the crib after naps (one of my girls has it down, and her sister tries to copy but isn’t quite as adept at it yet). The life insurance thing is pretty important, too! Basically, I think all of these things need to happen. Maybe not today, but soon.
Fortunately, this month should be much better financially than last month (knock on wood), so I’m hoping that we’ll have a larger budget to work with when I’m allocating all of these expenses next month. But each dollar spent on these items is, necessarily, one less dollar spent on debt payments. And I look ahead toward the holiday season with worry. Ideally, we’d start buying a few gifts here and there so as to alleviate the financial burden of Christmas in the month of December, but it already looks like October is going to be a bust, so we can’t even think about Christmas gifts until November/December. Or perhaps Christmas gifts just get slashed from the budget this year entirely? One thing’s for sure – it’s gonna be a tough couple of months ahead.
What would you do? Put off all purchases until October? Try to hold out on the pants? Maybe ghetto-rig the crib conversion somehow for the time being? Maybe I can go donate plasma to make some extra money (I half-joke, but I have totally donated plasma in my younger days as a way to supplement my income. If you didn’t know, it’s a real thing you get paid real money to do…)
