Bonus Challenge
1. If you understand “that saving money for your future is not going to keep you from enjoying life”, you can more likely avoid crisis-living.
2. I guess our number one purchase that wasn’t actually needed is our house, but we have no regrets. Most recently, I justified buying a vegetable chopper…it is awful and smushes things…I would suggest saving $5 and chopping your onions yourself.

1. How many “wants” did you incorrectly classify as “needs”?
I found six categories that are more “wants” than “needs” on my budget:
charitable gifts, cell phone, restaurant fund, Christmas gift fund, entertainment, blow money

2. Do you have any “wants” that you labeled as a “need” that could be eliminated from the budget? How many?
- Well, we only have $10 per month going to our charitable fund for now (we hope to increase that as we pay our debt), and we like the feeling of giving to others, so I would hate to eliminate this from the budget. I suppose it could be eliminated, though.
-We spend $60/month on our cell phones. I see this as a “want” and would love to eliminate it from the budget, but my husband believes we need the phones.
_Our restaurant fund is only $20/month, so we take the kids out to eat once each month. It could be eliminated, but it seems a bit extreme not to eat out at all. And sometimes, I just feel like I need a break from all of the cooking!
_We save $45 per month for our Christmas spending. As I’m writing this, I’m realizing we could spend a lot less at Christmas, so I think this amount should be reduced.
-Our entertainment fund is $20 per month. Not too much, really, and it is important to take our 2 young boys out for some fun each month.
_My husband gets $60 per month and I get $20 per month for our own spending money. Most of the $60 is going to restaurants during my husband’s work days. That could be reduced if I spent more time packing lunches for him.
So, I suppose all of these could be eliminated. If not eliminated, I could at least reduce the amount of money going to each category.

3. How much extra money would you have each month if you eliminated the “wants”?
If I eliminate all of those, we would save an extra $235 each month. Wow. That’s quite a bit.

Do you have any “wants” on the list, that are above obvious needs?
No, I don’t see any wants above above obvious needs. Except that if we eliminated some of the categories I listed above, we would have more money for saving and cutting debt.

BONUS QUESTIONS:
4. If you understand __________________________, you can more likely avoid crisis-living. (Fill in the blank)

If I understand that saving money for my future is not going to keep me from enjoying my life, but that it will give me a life to really enjoy, then I can stop spending money on things I don’t need and can more likely avoid crisis living.

2. Share a story of when you knowingly bought something you know you shouldn’t have bought, but did, because you wrongly rationalized it as a need.

When my husband and I were about to have our first child, we bought into the whole idea that we needed all of these various baby items such as a bassinet in addition to the regular crib, a Boppy pillow, a Pack ‘N Play, a play mat, etc. We purchased all of these things because we thought we needed them. We realized later that we didn’t need any of those things and we wished we hadn’t spent the money on all of those things.

2. I guess I could get rid of the charitable gifts, but I do not want to compromise on a college fund for our daughter. I have a sinking fund for charitable gifts because I tend to give in large lump sums, but it averages out to $250 a month. Other wants that I could get rid of would be:
-cell phone (120 a month) – I could downgrade this plan because my husband and I both have cell phones provided by work, but I don’t feel comfortable using work phones for personal calls.
-restaurants (400 a month) – we really need to lower this bill. This is because we don’t like to bring our lunch. I could lower this by a lot if we just brought our lunch at least 2 days a week!
-blow money (400 a month) – I could lower this, but then DH and I would be very sad. We currently have no debt other than mortgage so I think this will stay where it is (200 per person).
-netflix (15 a month) we don’t have cable, though so this is our only at home relaxing entertainment. I’m not ready to get rid of this, yet.
- vacation fund – (215 a month) – This is really mostly to see our families and such. I guess we could cut this if there is a dire emergency, otherwise, it stays.

3. $1400

4. Do you have any “wants” on the list, that are above obvious needs? nope.

BONUS:

1. If you understand that saving money for your future is not going to keep you from enjoying life, you can more likely avoid crisis-living.

2. When my husband and I first got engaged, we bought a house in a bad neighborhood because I wrongly thought we needed it. In retrospect, we should have rented for a while and saved up to put 20% down on a nicer house in a better neighborhood. 4 years of PMI and annoying neighbors later, we were able to sell it and break even (thank goodness). When we bought our 2nd home, we made sure we had 20% down and also that our new home was in a good neighborhood with good school districts and that we could afford it on one salary.

LOL it looks like you have planned your expenses on paper on purpose, which I would expect nothing less from someone with a blog titled Budgets Are The New Black. Haha! You could be a great example and give some really great advice here if your up for it. Please feel free to link to your own articles on budgeting! Oh and Welcome to the challenge!

I think you are already subscribed, but be sure to dot he other two requirements to make it official.

Ooch. You hit me on a bad week. (And yes, that’s “Ooch”. With two “oo”‘s.)

Okay, so here’s the wants’ total (aka “indulgences”) for the month: $702.50

But wait! I can explain!

We just finished our initial debt snowball last month (can I get a W00t?!) And a good chunk of the above number is going toward two things I said I would do once we hit that goal: karate lessons for my son; and one “1″ massage for moi. So…
The Breakdown:
$350 = 3 months of son’s karate lessons (pre-paid)
$60 = one massage
$50 = cable (almost forgot this one)
$112.50 = daughter’s dance lessons
$50 = going in “entertainment” envelope
$30 = going in “booze” envelope (just being realistic here)
$50 = blow money for me

Yes, we have internet, but personally I do not consider that a “want”. It’s too essential for finances, paying bills, homework for my teenager, and staying in touch with my hubby who’s deployed. So there.

We have pre-paid cell phones stocked up one year in advance thus no monthly bills for that.

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Please keep up the great work!

As far as the food budget goes, sometimes we find it hard to meet that recommendation too, but mostly because we are slackers. LOL If you want some GREAT ideas on how to cut that down The Frugal Girl has great ideas about doing that. CBN News recently did a story on her actually that I found quite inspiring!

$623!! Wow! Imagine if you only save even half of that? That would be awesome right?

Bonus:
If you understand wants vs. needs, and planning your spending, you can more likely avoid crisis-living.

A few years ago, we decided we were going to sell our house, so we “needed” to remodel and update so we could get more money out of it in a competitive market. Spent a ton of money on plastic to upgrade–didn’t end up putting it on the market for various reasons, including the massive credit card debt we racked up getting it ready to go on the market–STUPID!!!

This post was mentioned on Twitter by enemyofdebt: New at EOD: Manage Your Money: Wants Versus Needs http://goo.gl/fb/gxk0...