subject: Plan Your School Expenses Budget To Include Even The Unexpected [print this page] Your family budget is perfectYour family budget is perfect. You've got yourself a savings account, you have every bill paid on time, and you're making all the necessary cutbacks to ensure your family can make it comfortably through each month with your budget intact. It appears your family budget would be the envy of any financial planner.
And then it's back-to-school time. This shouldn't present a problem though because you had to pay daycare expenses, so those two expenses should balance each other out, shouldn't they? In the best case scenario, yes. However, there's always going to be a hiccup in the plan and suggesting that you'll be covered if you just assume you have extra money in your pocket is normally an assumption that will get you into a bit of a pickle. Best laid plans being what they are, we all know what happens to those.
You may have already had a few after-school announcements about needing money for some project or another. If you've had to scramble to find the money to cover it, then you've already seen the error in hoping that there will be enough money for those miscellaneous school expenses. And, it won't stop there. As the school year goes on, the notes that your youngsters pull out of their backpacks will increase, setting off an avalanche of requests for more and more money. Your children will start to resemble little street beggars. It happens every year.
You most certainly want your little student to participate in every project, field trip, and special event the school has to offer. Your heart is in the right place, it's just your wallet that's falling behind. After the first few notes came home in the backpack, you've cleaned out the cookie jar. If next week is anything like this week, you'll be digging into the savings account. This isn't exactly what you had intended when you set up your savings, but where else is the money coming from? Now that you've checked the sofa for loose change, you've exhausted your options.
So, how do you keep these miscellaneous school expenses from sending you into the poor house? If you're being "nickel-and-dimed" to tears by these requests for money, you'll want to rethink a few things. Miscellaneous school expenses will not disappear so they need to be treated as if they are a fixed expense in the budget.
If you're looking around for money to pay for unexpected school expenses, you're probably going to find it in a place that can't afford to share. You're going to be borrowing from a budgeted item to pay for an unplanned expense. Why is this going to ruin your family's budget? Because the time will come when the item you borrowed from, whether grocery money, utility money, or credit card payment money, will have to be reimbursed in order to make the next installment. If it is the grocery money that's been depleted, then the next time you go to the grocery store, you're using the credit card. If it's the credit card payment that's been borrowed against, well, you can see where this is going. It looks like you'll need to plan for these unforeseen school expenses then, but how?
Most every school district has a curriculum laid out at the beginning of each year. It may not cover the entire year - possibly just a semester at a time. At any rate, you should be able to find out from the school what's on the school calendar. If there is a field trip, book drive, or fund-raiser, you should be able to get this information ahead of time.
You'll want to visit your child's school office, talk to your child's teacher, and get a list of the events that are upcoming during the school year. If the school doesn't have a calendar of events readily available, be sure to follow up and ask when and where that might be made available. Every school board has some sort of budget that they are operating under. If you ask for a curriculum in order that you may budget your household monies, they will most likely understand and be happy to help you.
The request for money to cover school "extras" is not the problem. If you have to say no to some things, I'm sure you can, but I'm sure you would prefer not to refuse your child anything. School expenses should be a well planned out item in your family budget, just like every other important aspect of your family's life.
Drop by the school today to start planning for those little surprises in your child's backpack. You don't want to wait until your budget starts to suffer before you take action. Get a curriculum, get the information, and enjoy digging through your child's backpack without fear!
