Five Budget Busters Meme
Lynnae at Being Frugal tagged me in the 5 Budget Busters meme. As far as I understand, I need to list 5 budget busters for us, and then tag 3 other people to do the same. Since I’ve been budgeting for a little while now, I figure I can probably do this. 
My budget busters aren’t quite line items in my budget though, rather attitudes and behaviors that increase my spending.
My biggest budget buster is honestly a lack of organization. I am one of those people who thinks they are organized but really is not. I have tried about 15 times to start collecting coupons, and never got things organized to do so. I lose track of things. I completely lose things and have to replace them. basically, I’m a mess. But don’t tell anyone! 
Much of my budget-busting is also from lack of experience with budgeting for us, so I don’t know the appropriate amounts to budget. There are two places this became apparent over this last year of budgeting - natural gas usage and medical expenses. Our natural gas usage this winter was just a lot more expensive than I had budgeted for. We made adjustments and made it through, but every month I was pulling money from here, there, and everywhere to make it work. As for medical expenses, they can be so variable that I really don’t yet have a good sense of the appropriate amount we’ll need each month.
Failure to plan all the details is a problem of mine as well. I don’t tend to think of all the aspects of an event or trip, and then I get some monetary surprise. For example, my son competed in a taekwondo tournament last weekend. When I budgeted for it, I didn’t take into account parking, or the fact that unlike me, he’d want his name engraved on his trophy (they have a little stand at the tournament to do it). Combined that was $7 I hadn’t remembered to plan for, even though I should have - I’ve been to plenty of tournaments, after all.
The power of impulse is one I almost have a handle on, but sneaks up on me once in a while. Lately, I have been unable to resist buying different protein bars for my spouse to try. He eats about 5 protein bars a week so that isn’t exactly impulse except… well… let us just say that those Zone Perfect bars are tasty! Fudge Graham Zone Perfect bars… yum. And then I have to buy more because someone ate the ones he was supposed to eat. Impulsive eating, impulsive spending, it all adds up to money I didn’t need to spend.
And I have to list just one category - my car - as a budget buster. Since the engine self-destructed, I think it deserves mention as number 5. Cars in general are just more expensive than I’d really ever considered. Here’s to hoping that it does okay for a few more years and doesn’t bust open my budget again!
I am supposed to tag three people, so I will tag:
Have fun and don’t bust your budgets! What’s your biggest budget buster?
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April 25th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Just wanted to throw this out here since you mentioned having coupon issues. I used to be that way too but finally was able to get a handle on the coupons by putting them into a binder and now I have no problems whatsoever. I wrote about it here: http://debtnonsequitur.blogspot.com/2008/03/using-coupons-hardcore-crash-course.html. I hope that helps you some. The more we can support and motivate one another the more we will each succeed.