If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may remember that we use Budget Accounts when it comes to certain budget categories. Having budget accounts has really helped us stick to a budget and has made having to fork over a large expense much easier.
Just like yesterday, my husband finally found the best deal on tires for his truck (he’s such a great haggler! I’m actually super jealous of his skills). So when he called and told me the price, I was able to transfer the amount needed to our checking account from our car maintenance savings account so he could purchase the tires without having to touch our money to pay bills, Christmas gifts, groceries, etc.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like seeing our Car Maintenance account low but it makes life so much easier when we don’t have to stress about making large necessary purchases. It’s nice to not go broke once we have to pay for these necessary expenses. We even use this account to pay for our oil changes, tire rotations, tune-ups, emissions, repairs and ad valorem. Right now, every month we contribute, automatically, $60 to this account. As an added bonus, if you use a savings account for these type of things, you can actually earn money (i.e. interest) on your money!
I hope my example will help you if you need help budgeting in regular high expenses, such as car maintenance and repairs. What is the best way that you have found so far to budget for these type of expenses?
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I love writing about my family's journey towards financial freedom and about ways to optimize your life, save money, and live well! Here are a few more ways you can save money:
- Cook at home. During our debt-free journey we NEVER went out to eat because we honestly couldn't afford it, and now, even though we could afford it, we still don't go out to eat that often. But I'll be honest, meal planning was such a struggle for me during that time, but it totally saved our budget when I did it effectively! I ended up using a meal planning service for about two years which helped me not only meal plan better, but also helped me to create wholesome, healthy, and delicious meals for my whole family! You can see all the details and try different meal plans based on your preferences here .
- Earn gift cards. A simple way to earn a little extra money from home by using the Swagbucks site instead of Google for searching. I actually still do this to earn Home Depot gift cards for all our home projects. You can also do surveys and a few other things to earn points, which you redeem to purchase gift cards from them. Swagbucks is what we used to earn Amazon gift cards to help pay for Christmas or cash through PayPal to help pay off our debt faster. You can sign up for Swagbucks here.
- Switch Cell Phone Providers. One of the best things we did on the debt-free journey was to switch from our super expensive $150+ a month cell phone bill to a much more affordable plan! In fact, my cell phone bill is only $30 a month (my husband's plan is paid by his business)! Check out Mint Mobile here to see if you can save your family some money!
- Create a budget. It took us a while to figure out a budget that works well for our family, but the two things that we have used over the years and still do (and still love) are my Budget Binder and Personal Capital (online budgeting software). You can see my Budget Binder tutorial here and check out Personal Capital here.
Car maintenance can be so pricey! My husband and I drive old cars, but thankfully he’s very mechanically skilled and he fixes them himself in our driveway. Still the parts and the tools cost money–we regularly set aside short-term savings for the unexpected-yet-expected car repair!
It’s awesome having a handy husband! 🙂 And sometimes the parts can cost just as much as the labor it’s insane! Good for y’all being prepared!
We seem to have one unexpected bill per month, so that just takes whatever is left in our account at the time. Not a great strategy, but it’s pretty much all we can do for now. We are working really hard to get our credit cards paid off and hopefully then we can build some savings.
Getting out of debt is such a challenge. We are still working on some of ours (student loans, car, and mortgage). It took some real scrapping by to get our credit cards paid off but it’s so worth it in the end. Keep going and good luck! 🙂
I just got a great deal on snow tires for my car. We found them on Craigslist. We found ones with 80% wear for the front and about 60% wear for the back for about $200. I figure we saved a good $400 or more dollars over a brand new set. I don’t know why people have such a problem with buying anything uses. I think it’s so much smarter.
Buying used really does save! I think that in our society we’ve become so accustomed to everything being ‘throw away’ that we get freaked out by using something used. And that’s a great deal on tires! 🙂
Great idea. I just had to buy 4 new tires. Luckily I had the funds but given the age of my car, I def need to transfer some $ automatically to a car maintenance fund every month! xo, Cat@BudgetBlonde
Thank you Cat! My hubs truck is pretty old and he’s a road warrior for work so he literally has to change the oil almost every month so it can get expensive! lol
Love this idea! Question– do you have actual separate accounts for car maintenance, Christmas presents, etc. or do you have one account and keep your own register for how much is car, how much is Christmas, and so on? Right now we have one account, but I’m not the best at remembering to separate it all out in my register, so maybe different ones would help? Thanks for the great tips!
~Abby =)
Yes we do have separate accounts. I use Paypal as my ‘gift account’ to pay for Christmas, birthdays, or special occasion presents. I used to have one account but the money would always end up getting spent on something else. It’s been a lot easier to track with a separate account. 🙂