Because spring is upon us, I knew The Kids' would be needing new summer clothes and shoes. Also, The Husband has been saying for months that he needed clothes for work, but we have been too busy with house stuff and kids' activities to get to the store to get him clothes. Anyhow, back to summer clothes. Knowing this expense would be coming, I have been trying to fund our clothing envelope.
Before leaving for our trip, I took The Girl to Justice. She got a new swimsuit and some new sports bras for dance to the tune of $50. I was able to pay cash. (Minor success.)
Yesterday was payday for me and we had budgeted another $100 to go into our clothes envelope. This brought the total up to $310. Last night, we finally made the time to get to the store. For whatever reason, The Boy has the most success finding shorts at Walmart. We found 6 pairs of shorts and two shirts for The Boy. He picked out 5 pairs of cargo/khaki shorts and one pair of athletic/basketball shorts. Those, in conjunction to what still fits him from last year should easily get him through the summer.
We also were able to get clothes for The Husband. He found 2 pairs of casual work pants. We decided to try the Walmart brand. They were only $12 a pair and they looked really nice on him. We're willing to give them a chance and see how they work out. The Husband also got a nice pair of work pants, 2 pairs of shorts, a pack of under tank tops, a pack of underwear and 2 leather dress belts for work.
Lastly, we checked out clothes for The Girl. She doesn't tend to have as much luck at Walmart as her brother does, but we found some stuff that works for her. She got a new dress, 7 tank tops, and 2 pairs of athletic shorts.
Putting everything up on the belt at the register, I was a little afraid of how much we spent. I knew we went well over our $310 budget, but I didn't know by how much. Almost everything we bought was a "need" so I stopped paying attention to how much we spent.
The grant total came to... $291! Obviously, this is my envelope success! I couldn't believe, with everything we bought, that we had enough cash to cover it! I was, and am, super excited.
But, now the fail... Then we went to Target. The Girl didn't get find any shorts she could wear to school at Walmart so we tried Target. There she found 3 pairs of shorts. The Boy also found a sweatshirt he really liked (and that looked really nice on him) that was on clearance. It was 50% off and only $12.50. We bought it a size bigger than he needs because he won't be wearing it until next fall/winter. Our clothing total at Target was about $46, so in the end, we went about $25 over our clothing budget. :(
The Kids' still need shoes for summer and I'm going to continue to fund our envelopes, but overall, I'm pretty happy with how well we did. This is by far the most money we've ever had in our clothes envelope and the least money we've ever had to compensate for, so it was both a success and a failure.
We are getting there. Slow and steady wins the race!
No comments:
Post a Comment