I've Been Tagged... My Five Budget Busters

This has been a great blogging week for me. First I won a $50 Visa Card from Michelle and now I have been tagged for the first time!

I've been tagged by Monica! She shared her top 5 budget busters and "tagged" me to do the same! So here goes in no set order...

1. I think every American is dealing with higher gas prices, but it is really affecting our budget. Monte drives 60 miles a day to and from work. He has a Ford Explorer (V8, all wheel drive) and it is a gas hog. About 4 months ago, he started driving my beloved van because it gets a lot better gas mileage. Last fill up it cost $70 and we have to fill up every 5 days (my husband works 6 days week, at least twice a month). A month ago it cost us $50 to fill the van up. I can’t believe in one month it costs us $20 more to fill up.

2. Josiah is on a special diet (no wheat or dairy) so that makes our overall food budget higher than most “frugal” families. He will not be on this diet his whole life (at least I hope not), but until then we are going to have to deal with the higher prices.

3. Last year when food prices were *normal* I was able to buy a lot of organic food, but now I just can’t justify paying $6 for 8 organic strawberries. So I have had to go back to conventional, for the most part. The one thing I will not budge on is milk that is hormone free. For a gallon of organic hormone free milk is $6.00. We go through 1.5 gallons of milk each week (Josiah is on Rice Milk). I have found that some grocery stores (like Meijer) are now advertising that the farms they buy their milk from guarantee that they do not use hormones. I am not so anal about it being organic as I am with the hormones. I gave it a try last week when it was on sale at Meijer and the boys didn’t notice the difference!

4. The boys have 3 sets of grandparents and none live near us. The closest set live 7 hours away, with the furthest ones living 20 hours away. With summer approaching we’ll be making our yearly venture to the grandparents. This always puts a strain on the budget. Honestly, I don’t do well planning ahead. I am sure it wouldn’t put as much of a strain on the checkbook, if I did a better job preparing. Maybe next year that can be one of my goals!

5. I am going to throw Monte under the bus now and say that another buster is his hobby… hunting. All hobbies are expensive, but hunting has got to be close to the top of the list. There are always supplies he *NEEDS*, lotteries to get into, licenses to purchase, new defenseless animals that needs to be killed and with each new animals there is always a need for a special gun for that certain game. Each year he needs a new gun for whatever hunting season he is participating in and or game he is hunting. OK, I am exaggerating a little bit there. He has bought two new guns in the eight years that we have been married, but he would buy one each year if I wasn't in charge of the finances! Plus in my mind ONE gun is more than enough. The BIG kicker is… WE GIVE THE MEAT AWAY.

I am now tagging Shannon and Michelle.