They are savings challenges I want to reuse.
I discovered Staples does laminating for a reasonable price…about 15 cents CAD a sheet. That might be a better way to go. I might have 15 sheets total if more than one savings challenge is put in a standard 9 x 11 1/2” laminating pocket. I’ll check it out next time I’m in Staples.
I love categories so I do make new categories for things like that - like I don’t put “clothing” in the same category as “costumes” and I make a separate category for “fancy tea for home” vs “coffee out” because I like to track with granularity (not for everyone, for me I find it fun!).
But, when it’s not a regular expense, I often just do a split based on how I feel. I did a craft room session with a friend, which was entertainment but I also got some home decor out of it. so I split it 40/60 between “entertainment” and “home decor”
I’m pretty good at at least understanding our fixed costs, but I’m having trouble accounting for our rare-but-recurring (e.g. eventual roof replacement) or one-time (e.g. urgent, uninsured medical procedure) costs.
Last year I tried amortizing them to fit them into a “monthly” budget, which worked well for the recurring annual stuff, but this year so many one-time/emergency stuff happened that it shook my confidence in my ability to project future costs, especially with an unknown child.
So far this month, this has been:
This is more than the planned fixed costs for the rest of the month, combined, and makes me feel disgruntled about monitoring my “regular” spending when it’s the semi-unplanned stuff that really gets us.
I need a better mental model for how to plan (?) for this. Or have a giant emergency fund, which maybe isn’t unreasonable.
Week 1 Check in:
| Category | Goal | Week 1 Total |
|---|---|---|
| Rec Center | $50 | $0 |
| Charitable Giving | $100 | $24 |
| Life Insurance | $80 | $87 |
| Student Loan | $535 | $0 |
| Mortgage | $2,653 | $2,653 |
| Electric / Gas | $175 | $0 |
| Internet | $55 | $0 |
| Subscriptions | $80 | $0 |
| Costco ann fee | $120 | $130 |
| Home Improvement | $0 | $28 |
| Enrichment | $150 | $15 |
| Medical | $300 | $45 |
| Cell Phone | $60 | $36 |
| Service and Parts | $200 | $0 |
| DH Fun Money | $25 | $52 |
| E Fun Money | $25 | $4 |
| Coffee Shops | $50 | $25 |
| Household Items | $50 | $0 |
| Date Night | $100 | $0 |
| Clothing | $50 | $0 |
| Books | $30 | $0 |
| Toiletries | $30 | $0 |
| Hair/Massage | $50 | $0 |
| Baby Sitter | $0 | $0 |
| Baby Supplies | $100 | $0 |
| Uber | $50 | $0 |
| Gas | $75 | $0 |
| Groceries | $800 | $14 |
| Dining Out | $250 | $60 |
| Total Spending | $6,243 | $3,173 |
I realized that when I put my plan together I included a student loan payment, but since I’m on the SAVE plan this is yet another month when I won’t actually be making a payment. Which really sucks because it is another month of delay on PSLF 
One category that I hadn’t planned on was home improvement. However the blind tax strikes again because DH didn’t see D1 pull the hose into the driveway and then I backed up over the spray nozzle, destroying it. He took a walk while I was working to buy a new one at Ace Hardware and I didn’t realize the one he bought was $28?!?! He just got one that felt nice. He can’t see prices so it’s not his fault, but I never pay more than $10 for one 
Quick, mostly boring check for week 1:
I also just kind of go with how it feels. If I am legit making something that I will wear as clothes, then I probably count it as clothes. If it’s for a gift, I count it that way. Sometimes I just count it as “other personal spending” if it’s not for something crystal clear (eg, practice materials or something like interfacing that I will use for many things).
Not sure if you have these near you, but a nationwide copy shop chain (Fedex/Kinko’s) has laminators you can (pay to) use. I’ve had good luck printing my things e.g. 4-to-a-page, laminating a page, and then chopping in 4 using their (free) paper cutter. They’ve remained solidly waterproof for well over a decade now.
You can also buy lamination sheets that you can use at home. I used something like these, about 20 years ago and the one thing I can still find that I made still seems to be waterproof:
amazon link to sample product
Good luck!
thank you all for sharing your experiences! You’ve given me helpful input to mull over.
Not sure how you budget, but in my case I have subcategories for stuff like this–not quite the same but I have a ‘sports and hobbies’ budget, but then under that I’ve got a ‘general’ for things that aren’t expensive enough to be worth splitting and then ‘skiing,’ ‘biking,’ and ‘scuba’ as individual categories because those can get expensive/have gotten expensive in the past when I wasn’t watching them. For yours maybe under ‘clothing’ you could have a ‘homemade’ and ‘other’ so you can see how much is actually going to the clothes you make?
Thank-you @fool ! I phoned Staples and they are charging $3 per sheet now!
I’m going to check the dollar stores for the sheets you just press onto the card stock.
I know there have been some other suggestions but depending on what you plan to use it for, what about plastic sheet protectors? Like the kind you would put in a binder?
I don’t think that would work @BiblioFeroz i need to fit them in small envelopes to hold cash - bills and change. But a good idea otherwise.
First check-in
Okay I have decided my goal is to spend less than $4000 for the month. Last month a huge (and I mean huge) portion of our spending was groceries. If I watch our spending I’ll spend between $4-500 on groceries. Last month it was near a thousand.
So far I have spent $120.89 on groceries, which means I’m already on track to overspend on groceries.
This week I have planned several meals with food we already have. Making leftovers right now. I can do this…
Blockquote
You can do it!!
Yes we can both do this! I’m going to try to get two days more out of leftovers/creative usage in my house, too. 
Tomorrow my plan: leftover scones for breakfast
Lunch: fried rice to use up two-day old rice + random fridge things
Dinner: leftover dumplings
Tomorrow morning: fresh rice in the rice cooker + mushrooms
Lunch: leftover ??? + mushrooms + fried egg if I need to round it out
Dinner: final serving of leftover dumplings.
Thanks @anomalily for mentioning the USDA food plans in her last stream. lt helped me pick a grocery budget of $700 got the challenge. We only allow ourselves to eat out once a month and otherwise we eat all of our meals at home so I feel like this is a reasonable starting point. I’ve updated Rocketmoney with this goal and I’ll keep checking in.
Very big grocery spend for the first week because I finally had time to do a bit of an inventory of my larder and some major restocking of the staples was necessary.
Then there was the discounted rib roast of beef that we splurged £30 on yesterday and had our first proper full roast dinner for about six months - absolutely no regrets on that one!
| Item | Cost | Type |
|---|---|---|
| Broadband | £40.00 | Monthly |
| Electric | £302.00 | Monthly |
| Council tax | £238.00 | Monthly |
| Mobile phones x 2 | £20.00 | Monthly |
| Property insurance inc public liability | £85.00 | Monthly |
| Netflix | £11.00 | Monthly |
| Kindle unlimited | £9.50 | Monthly |
| Groceries | £179.00 | Week 1 |
| Takeaway | £29.00 | Week 1 |
Running total : £913.50
I looked these up and the website throws an error saying i “can’t view it on this server”. Are they unavailable to view outside the USA? So weird. Would love to see what they’re like!
I’m Canadian and the website works for me!
Someone else said they don’t work for them in the Philippines! so weird