What is your budgeting "Achilles heel"?

[Peaseblossom36]

Whenever we make a semi expensive purchase at least one expensive item in the house breaks. Without fail, it’s very interesting.

We finally replaced our old push mower with a self propelled lawnmower, and within a week I had to replace both of our car seats, my washing machine started leaking and needed replaced and my brakes started making noises.

 

[clappyclaps]

For me it's those quick runs to the grocery store -- I never end up just buying 1 loaf of bread, or a gallon of milk, or whatever item was the intent. I end up grabbing a few other things while I'm there.

This is the main one for me, not just the quick runs but every time I do the main grocery shopping too. Mostly its snacks or sweet treats I don't really need or tasty sounding liqueurs or gins, but other times its homewares, clothes, beauty products. Came home with a robot vacuum cleaner the other week

Also clothes are a big achilles heel for me. Can't resist a cute new outfit or jumper, even though my wardrobes are full to bursting already. I have managed to mostly downgrade my purchases to Vinted rather than brand new in store, but I still buy too many on a monthly basis.

 

[barkley]

Whenever we make a semi expensive purchase at least one expensive item in the house breaks. Without fail, it’s very interesting.

I am convinced they get jealous of the attention the other is receiving b/c it never fails to happen. last year was terrible for us b/c the HVAC/heat pump....system shares the same quarters as the whole house generator so it got to observe all the attention the other received when it was being evaluated for repair vs. replacement. sure enough-after laying out over $15K replacing the generator the whole HVAC collection decides to gasp it's last breaths so it can exceed the generator's expenses

 

[TCRAIG]

1-my Daughter and my Grands
2-Christmas and Halloween
3-Buying DVC

 

[DanceDisney23]

Getting a puppy. Vet appointments, training, training treats, toys she’ll destroy, doggy daycare/boarding, and chew toys. Oh, and she chews through every harness.

I don’t think I have saved a penny since we got her.

 

[WDW_fan_in_TX]

Our achilles heel, if you can call it that, is eating out. We budget $400 for the month ($100/week), but we usually spend between $750-$800. Just easier to grab something out because we don't have to deal with leftovers. And we usually split stuff, which does make it cheaper. But lots of $3-$5 charges (I have started eating sandwiches at work, and I have to go somewhere and get a sweet tea). We do a budget each month, and our incoming is $5,600 between the 2 of us. Our bills, including rent, run about $4,200. We budget $400 for food, $500 for groceries and $300 for gas/tolls. That leaves $200 for "everything else." And we usually go over there too, whether it be oil changes for the car, stuff we have to pay for at church, Amazon orders, whatever. It's just really though. Been trying to do better, though, but it's a slow process.

 

[barkley]

Our achilles heel, if you can call it that, is eating out. We budget $400 for the month ($100/week), but we usually spend between $750-$800. Just easier to grab something out because we don't have to deal with leftovers. And we usually split stuff, which does make it cheaper. But lots of $3-$5 charges (I have started eating sandwiches at work, and I have to go somewhere and get a sweet tea). We do a budget each month, and our incoming is $5,600 between the 2 of us. Our bills, including rent, run about $4,200. We budget $400 for food, $500 for groceries and $300 for gas/tolls. That leaves $200 for "everything else." And we usually go over there too, whether it be oil changes for the car, stuff we have to pay for at church, Amazon orders, whatever. It's just really though. Been trying to do better, though, but it's a slow process.

I drink tea (not sweet) but can't it be made at home or purchased in a container (trader joe's seems to sell an abundance of their gallon jugs of it) to be taken in a thermous? I did a very rare lunch out today at a pretty affordable diner and was shocked to see that a glass of tea with tax ran just about $4.50. thinking about that 5 days a week, 22 work days a month and I can't imagine spending just shy of $100 a month just on one daily cold tea.

 

[kathy884]

For us it's poor relations who don't have high paying jobs, aren't getting the hours they need at work, one who just lost her very part time job and is not necessarily employable (mental health issues) , and one works really hard 50-60 plus hours a week but it's not a high paying who has a modest home inherited with insanely expensive taxes she can't afford (It's in New Jersey). There are three of these relatives, DH's sister, and his deceased brother's children (one in his early 40s and another in her early 30s). They live modestly, but still it feels like we are an ATM for them. I think we might eventually cut them off, but so far this has been going on for about four years, ever since my mother-in-law died (Sister took care of my mother-in-law), so we really have a soft spot for the sister, and their father and mother died (the niece and nephew).

We are retired too. DH takes money out of retirement savings for them. To add insult to injury the money we gave them kind of messed up our tax planning, and we'll have to now pay more for Medicare Part B and D than we were planning when the 2024 tax year catches up to us.

Poor relations are not something we ever planned for. It's just kind of been thrust upon us and so far we haven't said no.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I'd say for the most part we don't have one that truly affects our overall household budge but that doesn't mean we don't find ourselves at times saying "oof we need to reduce". Like my husband has been out of town virtually every week since late June for multiple days in a row. Because of him being more out of town we had been relying more on doordash (which we have some credits with one of our CCs and have a dashpass because of that CC) or pick up food quick the evenings he is home because for grocery shopping it's been much harder to plan that with him being home 3 days then gone for 4 days back for 4 days gone for 2 days and so on. A temporary bump in spending due to that compared to grocery shopping where we can plan 5-7 days worth of meals at one meant to be mostly continuous with having leftovers, etc. I plan what meals I can for when he's gone that would work for just 1 person so I'm not using doordash when he's gone but yeah.

We have one meal left for tonight to make actually planned for last week that didn't work out with scheduling and thus are now needing to do grocery shopping since he's actually not out of town next week. We both said last weekend "we really need to get back into making meals at home again" lol.

So for us while we are majority of the time really good at making meals at home sometimes for short stints for one reason or another we'll do less of that and food delivery, even with credits or a pass, are still expensive and adds up quickly.