Ugh...budget busting coming up in 3, 2, 1...
I just made our eye doctor appointments for next week. I think both kids will need new glasses, and we do NOT trust Zenni anymore after 2 bad experiences. My kids vision is pretty complicated and I refuse to scrimp on their glasses. I'm not comfortable with the online route. Last time we paid approx. $350 per pair...2 years ago. My oldest might be able to get away with just new lenses (although, because they are Transitions, not cheap), but my youngest has grown so much that his frames are too small for his face now. I'm dreading it.
Also, I just took my bike to the bike shop to get a minor repair and happened to ask the tech how often I should buy a new helmet. He said "about every year you should get a new one." Yikes!!!! The helmet I have been using, I've had since 2010. Oops... so I bought a new helmet for $100. Then, came home, checked the date on my kids helmets, and they are almost 3 years old, so gonna have to buy them new ones too. And, unfortunately, we do a lot of long distance rides on trails and I don't trust cheap helmets from big box stores (plus, my teens have HUGE heads and never fit into the standard sized ones anyway.) So, looking at another $150-200 there. But, it's my kid's heads, and ever since they stopped using carseats, it's the area where I do NOT cut corners. We spend a lot of time on our bikes year round, so it just is what it is.
And onto some voluntary budget busting...DH and I are going to go to Vegas in June for 3 days while his mom stays with our kids. We want to do a getaway for our anniversary/before he leaves me for a year. We got flights on Jet Blue for free using points we transferred from our rewards credit card, so that is good. Hotel will be only about $400-500 for 3 nights, all in. Food will be another $500 probably (we like to splurge on fancy meals when the kids aren't around). But, the big one was...concert tickets to see Lady Gaga's Jazz and Piano show! I am SO excited about that! She is my favorite and I've never seen her live. We got the cheapest tickets we could, but they were each $350 after fees, so we just charged $700 to our card last weekend to pay for them, because there were literally only 6 tickets left at that price, and the next ones up were over $500 without fees. My husband also wants to see the Cirque du Soleil Beatles Love show, so that will be another $300 or so.
But, it's worth it because once he goes over to Japan in July, he will get around an extra $500/month nontaxable pay, plus we will stop owing CA income tax, which will net us an additional $250/month. And, his expenses over there will be pretty low. He will get free housing, and can eat meals in the chow hall for a few dollars per meal. Our expenses here will go down significantly as well, since he won't be buying gas 2x/week, we can lower the mileage on his car down to basically nothing and save on insurance, and I won't be buying as much food either.
On a positive note, our general spending this past month has been way down because we've literally only been buying food, gas, etc., stuff we actually NEED. So, the money we spent on the concert tickets actually fits into what I allocate for monthly credit card spending in general. So, I won't have any issues paying off the cards in full next month AND we are on track to put $2000 next month into our savings, so yay for that!
