Eliminating “surprise” expenses

Ever think about the fact that the holidays come at the same time each year…yet somehow we forget to budget for them? Or that you need to fill your home’s oil tank a couple of times each year (for those of us in old houses), yet you never seem to have enough cash?

If you take a minute to consider it, there are lots of expenses that only happen a few times a year, so we don’t really plan for them. But why not? A few years ago, my DH and I sat down and brainstormed every annoying expense that had caught us by surprise. Could we somehow anticipate them?

Tracking credit card purchases in Quicken

I used to cringe when my credit card statement arrived in the mail. And, actually, not because we carry a huge balance. We pay off our balance every month. Still, there would always be a couple of purchases I had forgotten about, and they would totally throw off my monthly budget.

I admit that I’m a bit anal about our monthly family budget. My friends and family know this and tease me about it. But I can’t help it. It’s in my genes. My dad was a tax preparer and math nut. It’s a built-in idiosyncrasy in my family!

So a couple of months ago, I figured out a solution in Quicken, my financial computer program of choice. (You’ll hear about my beloved Quicken often if you follow this blog, just to warn ya.)

What I do is this: I keep track of my credit card purchases in Quicken as we make them. And I have the program deduct them from the appropriate categories (Groceries, Dining Out, etc.) in our monthly budget as we go along. That way, when our credit card statement appears, I’ve already subtracted every plastic purchase from our monthly budget. No surprises! (Well, OK, fewer surprises. I still forget to record receipts from time to time.)