Future Expenses

**JanieD** · 03-29-2008, 03:04 PM

Looking for advise on how to save for future expenses. Any thoughts on "finding" money to save toward an uncoming expense to avoid debt? The kinds of expenses I'm thinking about are car repairs, home repairs, appliance purchase or such. Guess I'm really wonder how you consider these expenses... emergency category, regular savings type items or what? Any thoughts on how to increase/find money for these expenses in the budget?

**forHISglory** · 03-29-2008, 03:11 PM

There is , of course, no right answer for your question, as families will find ways that suit their mode of saving. I "hid" money in my checking account to help with this. I would write an entry in the check register that said "Emergency" and make it out for $100 or whatever. Then I highlighted in yellow that line of the register. I subtracted the $100 from the total in the checkbook. The money was still in the bank, but my checkbook would show the lesser amount. When I had to use that "hidden" money, then I would run an orange highlighter over the line. That way I could glance thru the check register and see how many yellow lines I had left and know how much emergency money was hidden in the account.

This made sense to us as we had checking with interest, and the rate was the same as a savings account. So we didn't transfer money to the savings account. If it had not been checking with interest, or if savings accounts paid a higher rate, then I would have transferred money there to use for this type of thing.

**yankeegal** · 03-29-2008, 03:27 PM

I took all of our yearly expenses...car insurance, registration, taxes, birthdays, etc...too many to list and divided it by 12. Every month that amount is put aside so when a particular bill that only occurs every so often pops up-the money is already designated for it.

**mombottoo** · 03-29-2008, 05:18 PM

I am in the process of making a personalized budget that will reflect these types of costs. I went through my receipts for last year and we paid out just over $1800 for car repairs, not including tires so that would bring it to $2400. This year I will put $150 per month aside for car repairs or the funds could be used to replace my car if need be. I've never paid over $2300 for a car for myself so I figure by the time I do need to replace it I should have the money already saved up.

House repairs don't come along very often for us, we do upkeep right along and we have friends who are contractors and they usually give us the stuff we end up needing...thank God for friends!!!

I'm in a position to where I really don't have to budget for cars, appliances and the like, but since joining Frugal Village it just makes more sense to do so.

**kcsmom76** · 03-29-2008, 08:58 PM

It sounds like you need an line in your budget for these expenses.

I would guesstimate how much you think you will need and put 1/12 of it back every month.

HTH!! (((hugs)))

**JanieD** · 03-31-2008, 11:42 AM

Thanks for the help. I'll look over my budget to see if I can squeeze out more savings. Will look to find other areas to cut as well. Just had a major car repair last month & used extra savings in my car insurance fund for part of it. However, it looks like another $700 repair will be needed soon. I've started extra savings for this, but its not really added up very fast. In the past we've used tax refunds to replace appliances or for small vacations, but I'd like to save this for upcoming things (new roof, heating system & new flooring). Seems so many things are coming up at once & will eat a hole into our savings if I'm not careful. Guess I need to tight up the budget.