Maximizing Our Monthly Budget: Household

Our household items are considered a once or twice a month trip to Sam's Club and Target. Outside of our normal grocery fund, at Sam's we stick to dry bulk items like toiletries, paper towels, napkins, tissues and bulk grocery like water, lipton green tea, milk, cranberry juice. At Target, the catagory includes carpet cleaner, detergent, candles, sponges, dishwashing liquid, body wash, toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, shampoo, and conditioner. Obviously since we don't need to replenish these items until they are depleted, we evaluate what we need and then go shop. We budget between $100-$150 because we can stretch a dollar pretty well. This week we had an unexpected trip to Target to get a $20 humidifier for the room. The household budget is the second most fluctuating catagory behind "restaurant", however some months when we have no items to purchase we have cash overflow. This doesnt deter us because whatever overflow we get, it gets added to next months household catagory. With a child on the way, I'm guessing the catagory will need to grow approx $70-$100 more, ie. baby powder, baby shampoo, DIAPERS!, etc.

Today we also went to the GYN for a normal check up and we got to HEAR THE HEARTBEAT! It sounds very fast and was such a great experience. Still I can't believe that we can produce something that has a heartbeat. Just surreal. posted by The American Dollar at 6:14 PM