Something Extra to be Thankful For

I know that Thanks­giv­ing is now just a dis­tant, pleas­ant mem­ory for most but I hope you’ll for­give me for my belated Thanks­giv­ing post.

I’ve just been look­ing over my YNAB bud­get* and dis­cov­ered an unfore­seen ben­e­fit of the hol­i­day — a lower gaso­line bill this month.  With The Daugh­ter being out of school for a whole week and The home­schooled Son not hav­ing classes, lessons, or rehearsal, and nei­ther child hav­ing games or team prac­tices, I esti­mate that the hol­i­day saved me some­where in the neigh­bor­hood of $60–75 worth of gas for The Tank.

In the spirit of stick­ing to YNAB’s Four Rules (specif­i­cally, Rule #2:  Give Every Dol­lar a Job), I’ve moved those $$‘s orig­i­nally bud­geted to Auto: Fuel over to my Gifts cat­e­gories where I’m sure they’ll be put to use (or more hon­estly, where they’ve already been put to use).

I’m already antic­i­pat­ing what the two-week school and activ­ity vaca­tion at Christmas/New Year’s will do for my gas bud­get (and, as a result, my gift bud­get).  Don’t get me wrong, though — I’m not pump­ing addi­tional $$‘s into my gift bud­get and plan­ning pur­chases I hadn’t already bud­geted for.  My gift list remains the same.  All I’m doing is tak­ing real dol­lars that won’t be spent on gas and allo­cat­ing them to gifts; before the gaso­line wind­fall was dis­cov­ered, the funds for gifts were com­ing out of other dis­cre­tionary bud­get cat­e­gories such as vaca­tion and sav­ings.

Related posts:

1. Catch­ing Up — May 5–11
2. She’s Baaaack!
3. $$: New Jeans
4. What’s In My Wal­let? What’s In My Purse?
5. Food