How do you hold down your "miscellaneous" spending?

[zetta]

We're in a good position where we don't need to watch every penny. I use YNAB mainly as a tracking tool just to keep an eye on things and make sure the spending doesn't get out of hand. While I probably could try to enforce spending limits on a per-catagory basis, for the most part this hasn't been necessary.

I'm planning on taking about a year off work when our twins are born this fall. I've run the numbers compared to our spending for the last year, and just need to trim our discretionary spending back a bit. We seem to spend about $600/mo on "miscellaneous" -- which are wants that don't occur frequently enough to warrant having their own catagory. I'm wondering if anyone has strategies they use to keep the spending on random items under control.

Here's a example of Misc from a recent month:
wine $32
costco $162 (combo of frozen food, clothing, and household items)
stamps $16
massage $70
virus protection software $35
new mouse $28
tax filing fee $20
toys $20
tablecloth $16
towels $30
annual fee for investment account $20
school pictures $32
sporting goods (ie DH toys) $54
father's day gifts $50
magazine subscriptions $20

Individually none of the purchase are big enough to say, "no more buying that", but after awhile they add up.

I find it doesn't make a lot of sense to split things like tablecloths from "DH toys" because the amount spent on each varies so much from month to month.

[disneysteve]

I think a bunch of things on your list should be part of your regular budget as they are recurring costs. Father's day comes every year. Your magazine subscription gets renewed annually. Your investment account fee gets charged every year.

Other charges should be worked into existing categories. The Costco spending should be split accordingly into groceries, clothing and wherever else (some may still be miscellaneous). Wine probably belongs in entertainment.

How do you cut down these costs? The only way is to pay attention to them and be aware that they need to be cut down. Did you really need to spend $32 on wine? Could your current towels have lasted a while longer? Could you switch to AVG and save the $35 on virus software? Could you give each other massages and pocket the $70?

I think cutting back the miscellaneous stuff boils down to the two of you agreeing to watch what you're spending and always stop and ask yourself if you really need the item before whipping out the cash or credit card.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I agree segregate out. DS might not like my answer, but I have a monthly booze budget. I was budgeting $50/month for alcohol. We enjoy drinking at home and out. It covered a 24 pack of beer every month and a drink or two out.

Clothes gets their own budget $50/month. So do office supplies for things like printer ink, paper, stamps, etc $20/month. Then household goods get their own budget, I replace things like towels, etc. Home repairs gets $400/month. Gifts get $25/month for Christmas, Birthdays, etc.

Entertainment is $100/month, food $300/month, eating out $300/month. Just stuff like that all broken down.

I know it's a pain, but it does help keep misc spending in check for me personally. This way when my DH buys a new harddrive for the computer and ink @ $50 I just put in our Annual budget, which already accounts for spending in that category.

I find monthly budgets too restricting. It's fine to track, but it's easier to budget annually.

[disneysteve]

DS might not like my answer, but I have a monthly booze budget. I was budgeting $50/month for alcohol.

I've got no problem with that. I didn't tell OP to cut out the wine. I just said to include it in the entertainment budget. Now if you said your monthly alcohol budget was $500 I might be a little concerned.

[Caoineag]

I found our solution was to get a cash allowance weekly. It doesn't matter what its spent on, but when it runs out, you are done spending. Much easier than trying to watch every penny.

[TBH]

I agree, the way to track and control the miscellaneous category is to divide the stuff up into existing categories or add a few categories. Your spending doesn't seem excessive to me, but if everything is more clearly broken out you will have an easier time spotting things that are getting out of hand.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Really I do think that fitting most of those items into categories is your biggest problem. Table cloth for example: What is it for? Is it entirely functional--to help keep the table clean and therefore could be put into the cleaning category? Is it to decorate your home and therefore fits into some home improvement category? It is to satisfy your own whim for a little color & fashion and therefore fits into your entertainment category? (I think a lot of household goods are bought to amuse the owner and make them feel refreshed with something new --so that seems like entertainment to me.)

So look at what categories you might fit those things into, or what categories you might need to create. Education? (magazines possibly) Health? (sporting goods possibly) Home Office? (stamps, computer goods, tax filing fee possibly). Entertainment? (could be a number of the things you listed including magazines, stamps, computer goods, sporting equipment. Just depends on how you view your life and the importance of these elements.)

[MonkeyMama]

This is my method - may or may help.

I don't like to over-categorize things. I just want to glance and make sure we aren't consistently going over on budget categories.

Gifts - we budget for gifts. Every month we buy some gift or another. Any recurring monthly expense warrants its own category.

Costco & stamps - I'd put that in my grocery category (because we buy stamps at the grocery store). Some months we are way under grocery - others we go over a bit. It all kind of evens out. But yeah - I lump a lot of stuff in the grocery category - and just budget more than I Expect to spend there.

magazines and pictures, tax filings - for that kind of stuff I put away money into savings every month. Pretty much anything that is regular and about the same every year - things like property taxes to things as little as magazine subs - we make sure to save up enough for all these things (take the annual amount and divide by 12). This savings account is the biggest key for these items not throwing us off. !!

This covers more of the "needs." For the "wants", we limit our spending to x every month. We simply do not have a lot for wants - we usually budget something in the realm of $250 per month for miscellaneous items - some wants, some needs. (We both get $50/month allowance for whatever we desire - can save for a big purchase if we prefer. We have about $150/month miscellaneous. If no expenses come up we tend to use it for family outings. But if we needed to buy things for the household, we'd use it for "need."). The misc. category is so I don't have to classify every little thing. Just simpler.

For the towels, table clothe, and mouse, I Would wait until those thing need replacing, and then wait another year to replace them. OR I wait until we have a low spend month and pick up those items. We generally don't have a lot of money for that kind of stuff, but will cut back other budget items if we really need something. I wait forever to replace things, but it does really keep the cost down to only buy what you REALLY need. This is coming from a place of not much disposable income.

Wine, massage, toys, sporting goods. IF we didn't have the cash that month we wouldn't spend money on any of these things. The suggestion of a cash-based envelope system is good in this regard. As mentioned above, we have our misc. category and allowances to cover this. When we hit $250 that's all we can spend for the month - we simply don't have the cash to spend more.

[mom-from-missouri]

We don't have that much misc spending. Most of our items are in our budget somewhere. We don't drink or smoke or buy junk food (candy, gum, chips...).

Right now we are not spending anything on entertainment either. I have earned several gift certificates from MyPoints and DH has had several given to him at work to last our eating out and movies the rest of the year and then some. Plus, we are doing the free in the summer bowling and free summer movies thing as well.

[zetta]

So look at what categories you might fit those things into, or what categories you might need to create. Education? (magazines possibly) Health? (sporting goods possibly) Home Office? (stamps, computer goods, tax filing fee possibly). Entertainment? (could be a number of the things you listed including magazines, stamps, computer goods, sporting equipment. Just depends on how you view your life and the importance of these elements.)

When I first started budgeting I had separate catagories similar to these. The amount I would spend in each was just too variable from month to month -- one month might have a lot of household "extras", then I wouldn't spend anything on decorating for several months and instead would be buying electronics. I spent a lot of time transfering money between catagories.

I will definitely create a Gifts catagory to cover birthdays and similar occasions. I'll have to look back to see if there are enough similar predictable needs to be worth a catagory.

We don't have that much misc spending. Most of our items are in our budget somewhere. We don't drink or smoke or buy junk food (candy, gum, chips...). Right now we are not spending anything on entertainment either.

I don't think we need (or want!) to drive our misc spending down to zero -- just to cut it perhaps in half. Instead buying of all the items listed, we need to choose each month whether to get the new towels and tablecloth or the massage, but not both.

For the "wants", we limit our spending to x every month. We simply do not have a lot for wants - we usually budget something in the realm of $250 per month for miscellaneous items - some wants, some needs. (We both get $50/month allowance for whatever we desire - can save for a big purchase if we prefer. We have about $150/month miscellaneous. If no expenses come up we tend to use it for family outings. But if we needed to buy things for the household, we'd use it for "need."). The misc. category is so I don't have to classify every little thing. Just simpler.

I tried giving us each "fun money" in the budget, but it didn't work very well. I kept having to raid the "fun" catagories to pay for Misc items that I couldn't really assign to DH or myself (for instance we both use the towels, so why should it come out of MY "fun"?)

It may be time to try that again, but I need a better name for the catagory. I'm thinking of combining it with the clothing/haircut catagory. "DH Discretionary" is too long and clinical, "DH Fun" is too restrictive (haircuts don't count as "fun"). Perhaps have a joint catagory as well.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Budget annually, that way months can go by where you have zero spending and then a huge hit.

I do that with everything. Budget annually. We spent $2k in June on car repairs. I budget $200/month in our "budget" monthly but we're not going to not fix a car. It should be building so when we need it, we can use it.

DS, yeah if I were spending $500/month on alcohol maybe I'd be worried too.

[arthurb999]

annual fee for investment account $20 - if this is a vanguard account... get online statements and they waive this.

We use the envelop system for cash shopping (i agree a lot of that should be included in budgeted line items) and have 100/month for truly misc stuff budgeted... like the virus software.

[TBH]

"DH Discretionary" is too long and clinical, "DH Fun" is too restrictive (haircuts don't count as "fun"). Perhaps have a joint catagory as well.

I have fallen off the budgeting wagon a little bit, but when I was doing well with it we called this "personal." It was for things like buying books, going out for lunch with friends without the rest of the family, etc.

[kork13]

I may be against the grain a bit, but I personally see no problem with having a "miscellaneous" category for the random stuff that comes up. I know that non-recurring/irregular items need to be purchased each month, so I simplify my budget with a generous but reasonable "miscellaneous category. Going through what I spend each month, if I can't easily put it into one of my existing categories, it's "miscellaneous".

As for controlling it, sort of like an "envelopes" method, I set a floor in my checking account, and my "misc" money is whatever is above that floor (because the rest of my money has been automatically sent to the appropriate accounts or set aside for incoming bills). It may be considered over-simplified, but it works for me. I keep fairly close track of my accounts, so I know what I can and can't do. Other than that, the thing that really helps me is always asking myself "Do I really need this? Right now?" I've saved myself from alot of dumb purchases with those 2 questions....

[sandrark]

We have a "household decor" category, a "household repair/maintenance" category, and a "personal care" category.

Haircuts, makeup - personal care
Tablecloths - household decor
Lightbulbs - household repair/maintenance

I fund them based on an annual estimate, and it works out well.

Sandi