My husband and I sometimes joke that I missed my calling – with as much as I love crunching numbers, I would’ve been a great accountant or financial planner!
I run a pretty tight ship with regards to our finances. And I’ve gotten pretty good over the years at anticipating and planning for those once-in-awhile type of expenses. I have a “semi-annual fee” budget line where I save a flat rate per month to help cover those one-off expenses that come up. This includes things like our annual Costco membership, our quarterly HOA payments, our biannual car insurance payments, and here lately, I’ve added another thing to the list: savings dedicated to Black Friday purchases.
Now, this isn’t those gift-giving type of purchases (those come from a separate part of my budget specifically set aside for gifts). This is for household purchases that are cheaper if purchased during big Black Friday promotions and sales. The thing that’s brought this up is our Water Filter replacements and our Reverse Osmosis filter and membrane replacements.
At first glance, this may seem a silly item to budget for and plan to buy at Black Friday time. But I’ve been watching the sales for long enough now to know that the biggest sale, by far, is at that time of year. You can find a 5% or 10% off coupon once in awhile. But last year for Black Friday, Dupure had a 40% off site-wide sale. And if you are familiar with reverse osmosis systems, those filters and membranes can get PRICEY! I’m talking $121 for the outer filters (required annually), and $169 for the membrane/inner filter (required once every 3 years). This is the year we have to replace all the filters, with a price tag of right at $300! You better believe I’ll be waiting for the 40% off sale instead of buying right now.
I’ve also been looking at products I use for skincare. Sometimes you can find little discounts, but last year at Black Friday time was the only time I’ve seen a 25% off coupon for a specific brand I really like.
The same is true for the yoga studio where I practice. The only discounts they offer are for new client sign-ups. But once a year they offer a sale on pre-purchased packages and – yep – it happens to fall right around Black Friday time.
Now that I’ve noticed and paid attention to these sales and know how much these items cost, I’m going to add them to my “semi-annual” budget so I can save and account for them. It’d be a lot of money to drop all at once at the end of November if it wasn’t planned out in advance! And with Christmas time coming up, I likely wouldn’t be spending extra money on things like skincare and yoga memberships. But again – if I plan and save up in advance, then it’s no big deal when I make those purchases because I know I already have the money sitting in an account ready to cover the expenses.
It’s easy to do once you’ve been tracking your spending for a while. I simply add up all of these “semi-annual” expenses across the entire year, divided by 12 months, and that’s how much I need to save per month! For me, it comes to about $350/month. Then I use this as a revolving account. I spend when expenses arise, and I replenish with a new $350 every month!
When the really expensive months arise (like our car insurance, which costs $858 every 6 months), I don’t have to stress about it being a high-spending month. I pull from my savings to cover the cost (over and above the $350 that I budget), and the next month when I have no semi-annual bills due, I put the entirety of the $350 back into the bank to save back up again.
It works great and relieves so much stress from when I used to “borrow from Paul to pay Peter” (which trust me – I’ve had to do in the past!)
I know lots of people anticipate irregular expenses, but I wondered if anyone else has done this method of anticipating Black Friday purchases (not gift-related purchases, but the more typical household type of purchases) and specifically budgeting and saving to make those purchases at a time when big sales are typically in effect?
What types of things have you noticed go on great sales for Black Friday that I might want to anticipate for the future?
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