July was a bit too spendy.
We bought the bike trailer for DD, plus a bike rack and hitch for DH's car so that we can go on biking trips. We love all of it and have already been on tons of rides, but it definitely wasn't cheap. Though we got the bike rack during an REI garage sale. Normal price would have been $688, but we got it for $335. Except for one little scratch, it was in perfect condition. And I was able to get the hitch plus installation from the VW dealership for just $340, which I think is probably a pretty good deal. Since these weren't really planned expenses, that meant that all of my extra per diem money from work trips plus everything that I sold on Facebook Marketplace over the past two months went towards the bike stuff. Which I guess isn't the worst thing, but I was planning other uses for that money.
And then DH decided he wanted a mountain bike, but didn't have the money to pay for it. We came up with a deal for him to "borrow" the money from another part of our budget and then pay it back over the next six months. He isn't doing super great with his more limited budget though because it is just the 8th and he has already blown through his entire allowance for August! But I will be reminding him of this for the rest of the month so that he doesn't get out of control.
We have gotten a little off track with our weekly budget meetings, so we have agreed to make a more concerted effort to do these. Though I am keeping on top of the finances using YNAB, I feel like in general we are going a bit astray from our usual budget concise ways. There was a little too much dining out last month. We had a budget meeting as well as a meeting to divide up household chores. We have never really done that before because we both just pitched in and did things as needed, but since DD was born, more of the stuff is just not getting done. I toyed with the idea of hiring a cleaning service once a month, but it isn't really in the budget right now, so we are just going to double down on doing stuff ourselves.
August is a 3 paycheck month for DH. I was originally planning to put it towards DH's citizenship application fees. The final payment for our cruise just came due, so almost all of that check went towards paying that final bill. I had thought we would have enough money saved to cover the cruise, but now we have plans for a labor day trip plus
Disneyland in November. All of these trips are now pretty much covered though with the exception of meals. I just got our Disneyland tickets with Chase points. We are planning for all fast casual at Disneyland, so we are budgeting $100 per day which is probably more than we will need. And for our Labor Day weekend trip we plan to pack food in a cooler to cover several meals to keep costs down.
We have decided that instead of having a birthday party for DD, we will go to the zoo to celebrate her first birthday instead. And I am having a friend make her a smash cake plus zoo animal themed cookies for everyone else. Plus we will be having family pictures taken by another friend that did her newborn photos. I have already purchased the bulk of her birthday and Hanukkah gifts. Her big Hanukkah gift will be a balance bike. It just arrived yesterday and looks awesome.
Maybe another time! I'm not sure how familiar you are with Disneyland (since I think your main park is WDW?), but if you have any questions just let me know! Disneyland is my home park (only live about 8 hours from Anaehim).
