Still moving forward!

 Busy days with my hubby home!

Busy days right now with my hubby home.  It seems like there is always so much more to do with him home.   One of the biggest challenges is to keep our budget in check.  Added groceries, a trip to Lowes, annual vet expense ($350-ouch), hair cut for him, a long overdue dental visit, oil change for the car…it feels near impossible to keep the wallet closed.

In all reality, though, these expenditures are not necessarily out of the ordinary purchases.  With my hubby away so much, our additional expenses tend to happen over a few short days rather than spaced over a longer period.  The trip to Lowes was more a matter of him being in the mood to finish up a project started late last Fall.   Hubby is (finally) getting around to finishing fixing some damaged drywall.  He had completed most of the work and just needed to touch up some areas, paint and re-install some trim around the door.  He is far more a perfectionist than I, hence me not wanting to finish up the job!

We’ve been discussing other projects that will need attention in the not too far off future.  Our kitchen is just one of them.  Since hubby isn’t home that much, he tends to be a bit more in tune with things than I am.  Things like our fridge making more noise than in the past.  I guess I have grown used to the increasing sounds.  Money-wise, I would rather he not inform me of these things needing attention!  Probably good that at least one of us is aware.  Is it wrong for me to be happy it’s him and not me?

A budget meeting is on the schedule for tonight.  One area we have not done well with is factoring household maintenance.  Whether we like it or not, a house does require upkeep, and we need to have a line item to account for expenses that come up.  It is far better to take care of things before they become a problem, often resulting in spending even more money.  One of our biggest examples is gutters.  The former owner never bothered to put them back up after installing a new roof.  The lack of gutters then caused the drywall issue that needed repair.  Before anyone asks, yes we were aware of the problem.  The gutters were the home improvement bill we paid off in February.  Given our weather, we went with a better quality system, hence a higher cost.

With hubby running some errands (dentist and haircut), I need to get busy with a preliminary budget for June.  We will also need to review May’s budget and very likely will make some changes.  In a perfect world, the budget would always go as planned.  While there are certainly many areas of the budget that we can adhere to (food, clothing, etc.), there are other areas we need to allow for a little more wiggle room.  I have a great admiration for people with much simpler finances!

Busy days with my hubby home, but always great to have him home.  We pack in a crazy amount of things in a few short days, and we keep moving forward!