Eight Items Missing From Your Budget

Creating a budget can feel like a mammoth task, but they’re essential to keeping track of your money. And make sure you always have enough money for the things you need/ want money for. It will help keep you accountable for the money you have. And will hopefully stop you from overspending. It’s unlikely you’ll forget things like your mortgage/ rent or money to buy groceries off your budget, but I’m sure there are still plenty of items missing from your budget.

As someone who loves to budget and split out my money, I’ve been honing our money for over a year since we first got the keys to our house. Every so often I’ll come up against a larger than usual expense and think can I save for that over a longer period?

These missing items can cause you to overspend, or dip into savings. And it will help eliminate some of the financial surprises that may pop up. Here are some items I’m sure are missing from your budget.

Birthdays

A lot of us save weekly or monthly towards Christmas to cover food, presents, decorations, etc. But so many people forget about birthdays. Between me and Luke, we have about nine family members we buy birthday presents for, and that’s without Mother’s Day/ Father’s Day, etc. And this can get quite expensive (especially when 75% of them happen within the same few months).

To keep yourself on track and not thrown off every time add saving for birthdays to your budget. All you need to do is work out roughly how much you spend on each person you buy for. Or how much you’d like to budget, then spread it over the year and you have your weekly/ monthly save total. This way you’ll never be stuck frantically trying to source money to buy your kid or your mum a birthday present.

Car and vehicle costs missing from your budget

If you use your car a lot you’ve probably factored fuel into your budget, but what about annual costs like an MOT, service, tax or insurance (if you don’t pay monthly). Depending on the car you own your tax might be quite high. Or you may be paying more for work your car needs to pass an MOT if it’s older/ used more. By putting aside a set amount per month you’ll have enough money to pay for the annual costs, but also have enough to pay for any general repairs.

You may only need to set aside a small amount per month, but it will save one larger cost coming out. We save money each month towards insurance as we pay it annually and not monthly to save on interest. Then we also save money towards services and MOTs so we have enough to book them in when it’s needed.

General household costs

Now I’m not talking big scenarios like your washing machine breaking, or your roof needing replacing. I’m talking about the general household costs which can all add up like replacing the filter in your water dispenser, doing a bulk cleaning supply order, putting in a new extractor fan, or those times when you need to stock up on bulbs and batteries. These things could come from my general day-to-day frivolous spending but what usually happens is everything goes, and I need to buy all these things at the same time. Plus I hate spending my ‘fun’ money on boring household stuff.

By setting a small budget to save for these things you can dip in whenever you need anything for round the house.

Clothing costs missing from your budget

Now if buying clothes is really important to you, this might not be missing from your budget. For the rest of us who just buy clothing either when you specifically need something, or you spot something we love it’s not in there. But we all should have a small bank of money for the clothes we need. If your trainers get a hole in them, or your work trousers rip and you can’t repair them you should have a small fund to be able to buy items like this. This is especially important if you have kids as they grow fast and you’ll be needing to replace clothing even quicker than usual.

Eating out

Most of us won’t forget to add groceries to our budget, but eating out is likely to be missing from your budget. It might be because it’s something g we’ve not really done for a while, but if you’re anything like us then an eating-out budget is 100% necessary. We love to eat out and try new restaurants and some months we’ll go out every single week, others we may go a whole month without eating out.

Setting money aside will mean if you fancy a meal out you’ve got some money ready to use. And it will help you plan where and when you’re going better. Say you budget £100 a month to eat out between the two of you but you want to go to a super fancy restaurant next month you know that this month you need to reign things in.

Other things that may be missing from your budget

• Pet-related costs- If you have pets it’s worth putting some money aside for items they may need over time. When we get our kittens I’ll be putting money aside each month as I know when they grow they’ll need additional or bigger scratching posts, beds, etc.
• Kids school- I remember how many times I’d come home from school and need money for a day trip or an event, even a trip away. While these things might not be happening at the moment if you do have kids it’s worth setting aside some money when activities start back up again.
• Opticians and glasses- Luke needs glasses and nice glasses don’t come cheap. So we set aside a small sum every week so when he needs new glasses every other year (or so) we have a chunk of money set aside for it.

Adding these things to your budget

None of us wants to be left with less money to spend on fun things but budgeting for as many expenses and scenarios as we can stop you from going over budget. Now you can’t predict everything, but you’ll feel a sense of peace knowing that as bases are covered as possible. If you forget about someone’s birthday until the last minute it’s fine as there’s money aside. Do you need to buy some top-up liquids for your car? No problem you have money aside for your car.

All the things you’re budgeting for, or setting money aside for should either go into a separate account or a savings pot in your Monzo account. This way you’ll know how much you have for each thing. Nothing should be missing from your budget now!

The more you budget and set money aside for the smoother your financial plans will go. And it means you know all the money left over is yours to do with whatever you want.

Are any of these things missing from your budget?

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