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The Mouse and the Couch

Budgets!  That is a bad word to some people, but it doesn't have to be.  I am not perfect at keeping within our budget at times and this is an area I am trying to work on.   I know I am not alone. What are some tips to help with your budget? One tip I want to share is saving up for bigger items and paying for it all at once. We needed a new couch because our old one was wearing out.  So we decided to save up for a new one.  In the meantime, I tried to cover the stains and holes in our old one with blankets. While we were saving up the money, I did research so I knew what I wanted to buy beforehand and about how much money we would need to save.  We set money aside each month in our budget when we could. The day we went to purchase our new couch I had a good idea of what I wanted.  I was excited as I found what I was looking for.  My husband and I bought the couch in full-which felt great and then we went home and waited a couple weeks for it to arrive.  The day we were expecting to receive our couch, we decided to get the old one out of the house and vacuum where it had been. My husband and two sons started to disassemble the couch (which had a section underneath that rolled out to make a full size bed).  As they were removing the roll out section, my oldest son ran out the front door clearly freaked out by something.  My other son and husband looked down and discovered the reason for my oldest son's reaction-there was a dead mouse squished and stuck to the bottom of the cushion. I couldn’t believe that we were living with a dead mouse in the house for like 6 months (which explains why we had a smell for awhile which we couldn’t figure out).


So that might get you thinking, what if you can not wait? What if you need to get a new oven because your old one isn't working and cost too much to repair?  Or the battery in your car dies? The answer is in an emergency fund! What does that mean? Basically you are putting money aside for a rainy day. I will get into more detail about emergency funds in a future post.  Stay tuned!!

To sum up:
  • Be prepared to live with something that you would like to replace until you can pay for a new item all at once. 
  • Do research online or window shop to get an idea of what you are looking for and how much you need to save up.  
  • After deciding how much you can spend, try to set money aside when you are able.
  • Also, try selling other items in your house that you do not want so you can earn extra money.  My husband and I have sold books, old furniture, and more on ebay, Craig's List or by just having a yard sale.

Share a time you were able to save up for something and paid for it in full without using a credit card.
But hopefully you didn't have to live with a dead mouse in your old couch!

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Comments

  1. dbspockJune 5, 2019 at 9:55 PM

    That's how I got my car...not having car payments makes budgeting easier.

    ReplyDelete

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