Friday, September 1, 2017

Unusual Spending for September

We do have some unusual spending coming up for the month of September, but for the most part, because of No Spend September, our month should be relatively inexpensive.

The kids have school pictures coming up in September; and even though it’s our no spend month, we still purchase school pictures because… life.  We have a wedding to attend in Oregon on Labor Day weekend, the first weekend in September. We also have a play (possibly 2) in September, and we will have dinner out on that (those) nights. Because of No Spend September, our spending should be really low for the month.

Although many people think school pictures are a waste of money in this day and age “because we take so many pictures and we can just print them ourselves”, I still buy school pictures. Yes, we take pictures and CAN print them out ourselves, but how many of us actually do? I am definitely guilty of this, and for that reason, we always buy school pictures. We like the “record” it keeps of our kids’ changes. To us, school pictures are money well spent. To cover this cost, we should have enough money in our “school” envelope. We try to fund this envelope all year long because school is expensive!

My nephew is getting married next month. They live in Oregon, a 9-hour drive away, and we are going to the wedding. We are driving 6.5 hours on Friday and the remaining 3 hours to the ceremony on Saturday. We will stay where the wedding is Saturday night, then Sunday we will drive to my uncle’s house in yet another city in Oregon, visit and spend the night there and then drive home on Monday. Normally we would need to pay for hotels for Friday and Saturday nights, but not this time. One night we are staying at hotel free because of Hotel.com's reward program of stay 10 nights, get one night free. The other night will also be free because we had over 25,000 point accumulated with another hotel chain from our summer vacation. We redeemed 10,000 of those points for another free hotel room. I’m super happy about those savings! We will need to pay for gas and food for the trip though. A lot of the trip should be covered with our normal gas money, but not all of it. And obviously food… We will bring snacks, but will eat most, if not all, of our meals out. We have already bought the wedding gift, so we shouldn’t have any other expenses related to the wedding.

Lastly, we do have some plays to attend in September. It is important to us, as a couple, to continue to date. To that end, we have purchased season tickets to the theater for the last several years. The one downside of this is that we don’t get to choose the dates; they mail them to us and we go when they say. This year, they say 2 in September. We hold season tickets with another couple and we go out to dinner with them beforehand. I wish they weren’t in September because of No Spend September, but it is what it is and we truly enjoy going!

This should be about it for September and I’m hoping nothing else unexpected pops up!

How do you plan and pay for unusual spending?

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