Every month we plan on spending certain amounts of money on rent, credit card bills, etc.  Yet there are many ways budgets seem to fail with the regularity of tides.  Why?  Something always comes up.  Something you did not plan on spending money on.  But I think some of these unexpected expenses are actually things that happen with enough regularity that we should budget for them.

So here is a working list of things that I think should be included in our budgets:

True cost of cars:

1. Oil Change
2. Tires need changes if they look this bald
3. Wipers seem to lose their effectiveness after a year
4. TICKETS whether parking or moving are more common than we all like to admit

True cost of health:

1. Your co-pay every time you see the doctor may only be 15 dollars but that can still make you go over your budget–which can then lead to money magic
2. Flu season is here and flu medicine is something that I buy regularly every year
3. oh my new glasses (my toddler did not like the old ones and promptly broke them one day) cost me a total of 360 dollars even with the 30% off offered by LensCrafters.  I fear this might become a regular expense.

Family and friends are expensive:

1. Every month is someone’s birthday and if you want that family member or friend to keep talking to you, you better get them something.  After all, they got you something for your last birthday.
2. Baby showers are pretty common if you have friends between 25-35 years old and baby stuff does not come with baby prices
3. Anniversaries are usually celebrated with presents and eating out
4. Father’s Day and Mother’s Day are a must since after all they paid for your existence in more ways than just money
5. And may I remind everyone out there that the holiday season is upon us and that means holiday gift shopping.  What we have been doing is budgeting the entire year so that the Christmas shopping bill will not fall on just the November paycheck.

This is just some of the things I encountered regularly that always made my budget seem inadequate.  Can you add anymore unexpected bills?

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