The importance of having wiggle room in your budget

Here in the Bumblefucked household we have been trying to live on a budget for a few months. After tracking spending for a while I came up with the following categories and target max spend amounts for our monthly spending:

• eats = $300
• utilities = $300
• car = $400
• gas = $125
• household = $150
• rent = $625
• medical = $400
• debt min pymts =  $435

Student loans are currently in deferment, so they are not included. And we are in full debt annihilation mode, so debt payments will be more $435. There are also some variable categories that appear some months, like ‘gifts.’

So, we use a budget more as a guide instead of something that is written in stone. And I think that is a good idea as sometimes you have things happen and you need to be able to handle that. For instance, last month I happened on an amazing sale on meats at the grocery store, which put us over the food budget by about $10.

I think it is important to have some wiggle room in your budget too. Our freezer is still pretty well stocked with meat for at least a week’s worth of meals. And we have some food in the pantry, so our only need items from the grocery store this week are fresh fruits and salad stuff.

Today we used some of that wiggle room though in the food budget.

We were across town at a doctor’s appointment and drove by a Meijer (like a SuperTarget) that was going out of business. So, we stopped in and discovered that all of the grocery stuff was at least 10% off! So, we stocked up on the stuff that was a good price, even though we did not need it. Some of the stuff we got was even 30% off!

I don’t like to spend $100 on food on one week. And in the end it might make us go over the food budget for the month. But the savings we got will make having that wiggle room worth it in the end!