Houston Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Written Budget People
How do you handle home imporvements and repairs? Do you lump them together? Do you put appliance repair/replacement in the same bucket? Do you include yard stuff?
We have a couple of large projects we want to do and some smaller ones. I know we need to make a plan of attack. However, every time a "want to do" comes to the top of the list a "have to do" takes it's place. I'm wondering if the "have to do" should have it's own budget.
Also, if you don't use all of your "personal spending" do you get to roll it to the next month? If you go over, does it get deducted from the next month? DH and I disagree...
Re: Written Budget People
We lump all of that together. Right now that's the largest budget item we have, even bigger than our mortgage.
Our personal spending money is all in cash, so it rolls over to the next month. If I choose to save my personal spending for 3 months & then spend it on something big, DH doesn't even realize it until the big item comes home.
Home repairs come out of the home line item. If it is something major that we know is coming, we budget for it in the beginning of the month. Yard stuff is included in our HOA, so that is n/a for us.
As far as personal spending, I allocate whatever is not spent to pay down extra on the mortgage. I would be totally okay if it were to roll over, as well. That being said, we have budgeted very generously for personal spending, so I never feel shorted.
We are getting ready to have our semi-annual budget meeting this weekend. I need to get a better handle of the boat/car racing/motorcycle expenses. I need to get new line items for all three things because it is getting out of control.
So Tasty, So Yummy
This is how I feel about DH's bikes and triathalon stuff. I think that should come out of his personal spending.. He disagrees. Maybe I need to take up an expensive hobby....
Oh B, I SO feel ya.
Crazy Christmas Kids!
Our 'personal' spending is a joint account. We don't keep tabs of whether the money is spent on him or me or F. Things are broken down into clothes, eating out, entertainment, etc... But there is no division between him and I. We need division because wakeboards and $100 worth of rope are killing our entertainment budget...lol
So Tasty, So Yummy
If we didn't divide ours up I would get almost nothing... it would be gone before I could touch it. We had a blow out over gym membership that he NEVER uses, but he might... someday....
I feel ya on the big ticket boy toys too.... although DH has gotten better at it.
We each have personal spending and if we don't spend it then we can save it up for something big that we want.
All home improvement, repairs, appliances, etc are lumped together but honestly we don't do very much of this.
Whatever we don't spend, we put in our personal savings accounts to be spent later. I spend mine every month, DH saves his extra and dones a big trip without me once a year.
Those things come out of our personal spending. Georgia has her own "personal spending" line item, which I use for all her clothes and stuff.
1.) House stuff: All gets lumped into one. Unless it is an emergency (therefore, has to come out of the emergency fund) it is saved for and take out of the "house" budget. If someone comes along and bumps it down, we have a meeting, discuss, see what needs to go first, and adjust our budget accordingly.
We email each other things that need to be dicussed at our budget meeting so that we can remember. I keep a folder with some paper and try to jot them all down. We keep the same email string going so it's easy to reference. If something keeps getting bumped down, we discuss whether we really need to do it or not. If it's a want, it waits until we can get to it. Even if that's never.
2.) Personal Spending: We each get $20 personal spending a month (for anything not in the budget... extra clothes that are a necessity, going out with friends, any large purchases for ourselves, and saving for gifts for each other... we be poor.).
We just take the money out every month is cash so we can spend it however we want and do not have to say what it is for. We have a "cash" section in our budget that it comes out of. Therefore, if you want to roll it over, you get to. If you want to blow it all, no big deal. It's your money to do what YOU want with it.
Our budget is very tight, so this might need to be taken with a grain of salt:
For things that are just for us, that comes out of our money. We have to save our personal spending to pay for it, or we don't get to do it. If we think it's somethng very valuable for us, we'll pitch in. For example:
A Bible Study I wanted to do this summer was $40... thus, 2 months of my personal spending. DH really wanted me to do it, so he pitched in one of his personal spending months. So $20 from me, $20 from him and I can do the study.
DH wanted a massage. It costs $45 after some coupons. I'm pitching in some birthday money and he's using some saved personal spending money.
If we don't do it together as a family (eating out, entertainment, etc) it doesn't come out of the big budget.