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Friday, January 21, 2011

OOps I forgot some things

This zero based budget thing is all well and good but how do you find the money if you forgot something ??

Today is payday, so I stopped off at the bank on my way to work to take out my cash for the week, Grocery, petrol, my money and a personal loan repayment. I had already paid some debt and allocated my savings into a couple of other accounts. All I had left in my main account was money to cover my future bills, electricity phone etc.

I was feeling on top of the world this budgeting thing is an absolute breeze I thought, Ive really got a handle on this I thought, wonder what made me think it would be difficult I thought.

Well you know the old saying that pride comes before a fall, almost the moment I stepped into work I was handed a card and asked to sign it and if I wanted to I could contribute some money to one of my workmates who had lost everything in the Queensland floods. His Insurance did,nt cover him for flood damage and the poor soul had lost everything, as well as which he is recovering from major surgery from bowel cancer.

So of course I wanted to help out and I put $20 into the envelope, a drop in the ocean in comparison to his needs, but hopefully it will help.

But where do I take this money from as it is all spoken for right down to the last cent. I have only allocated myself $20 for petrol so I can,t take it out of there. $100 for Groceries and with 3 adults and a cat to buy for it will be hard to take it from there. I was not about to take it out of a debt repayment, thats way to important. So my only choice was to take it out of my mad money for this week, so with that decision made, what should I do in future.

Do I have to rewrite my whole years budget to accommodate a gift and charity category ? I had intended to fund any gift buying with Snowflakes, should I leave it like that. What would you have done ????

9 comments:

  1. Continue to take it out of your mad money unless you want to redo the whole year's budget to make a charitable category.

    You did it as an act of charity but didn't plan for it, so for me, you can use your mad money to spend it however you wish.

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  2. I'd do the same as FB, take it out of your mad money :)

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  3. that is a bummer - but I am so proud of you that you contributed...

    I would have taken it out of your mad money as well...

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  4. I think mad money is the perfect category for this expense. Basically, you are sacraficing something fun for you in order to help others. That's what life is about.

    However, if you don't have a gift category already you might want to set one up (for regular gifts like birthdays and Christmas).

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  5. ya i think made money was the way to go but having a gift category is also worth having!!

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  6. I think the choice is yours... you can either rewrite your budget to account for a gifts/charity category, or take it out of your mad money like you did. Stuff pops up that's not accounted for, which is why I like to have a *misc* category, but you can only do so much with what you have!

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  7. What a great thing to do. Perhaps you should up your misc. category. I've only done my budget for one month at a time for just such situations. But...your money, your choice!

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  8. Thank you all for your imput.

    I have Hubby to thank for solving my dilemma for me, he put the contribution in, I think he felt sorry because I was in such a muddle about it. But this situation could happen again, and I need to come up with a plan to cope with it.

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  9. I remembered that time when I normally had dilemmas when it comes to budgeting and saving my money. I worried a lot if I have already spent or saved too much money for my budget. When the time came that I have decided to put up my own business, I found myself knocking on the doors of a loan company to help me have unsecured financing. Good thing one of the well known loan company here in Syosset, NY was able to help me out.

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