When to blow your budget: an exception to every rule

Clearly we love to budget. It’d be pretty tough to write a blog about responsible personal finance if we weren’t passionate about purposefully spending our money.  However, with every good plan, there are always going to be situations where the black and white of the rules get grayed out a bit.  We mentioned before when we bought our snowblower that sometimes additional expenses arise that aren’t necessarily emergencies, but are nice to be able to purchase when needed (i.e. when 10 inches of snow have fallen on the ground).  In that case we drew from savings/Christmas money to make an unplanned purchase.  We were faced with a similar predicament this week.

Being the last day of the month, our dining budget was maxed out.  We’d cleverly gotten the most out of that category and were looking forward to the start of a new month and a new budget!  We were content with going home from church to leftover chicken noodle soup for lunch.  But things changed when we ran in to some old friends — good friends — while at church.  These weren’t friends that we see every other week, but friends that we’d lost touch with for several months and that we were thrilled to catch up with.

After a couple minutes of chit chat in the church lobby, they invited us to go out to brunch after the service.  As we walked away to reserve some seats, Andrew and I quickly discussed that we shouldn’t be going out to eat since the budget was done for the month.  But then we stopped thinking practically and starting thinking emotionally and relationally.  Sometimes an overdue, much-needed conversation with friends trumps the budget.  Sometimes it’s more important to spend a few more bucks for the sake of a relationship.

So a couple of hours later we found ourselves eating omelets and drinking coffee—not feeling the least bit guilty for coming in $9 over our dining budget.  Maybe we’ll spend $9 less this month, but we’ll definitely see the true value in where our money is spent.

Related posts:

1. Holidays on the road won’t break our dining budget
2. Closing the monthly budget, January 2010
3. Best of Earn Give Save: February 2010
4. Where this thing begins…
5. We’re a couple of cheap dates

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1. 

   Katie B says:

   February 6, 2010 at 6:19 pm

   This was the perfect day for me to read your post – I just spent my afternoon having coffee and dinner with a friend, which is something I don’t do often because I simply don’t know many people out here in New Jersey where I’ve only lived a year. I was feeling a little guilty about spending the money because I’m trying to be better about budgeting and not eating out, but you’re so right. Sometimes time with friends is worth a few extra bucks one month and cutting back the next!

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     Andrew says:

     February 7, 2010 at 8:29 am

     Thanks for the comment, KTB! Glad to know you had a similar story — sometimes it’s just worth investing that little bit extra. Hope all is well in NJ

     reply