When you want something that's NOT in the budget...

Happy Saturday!

We live on a moderately tight budget, as my husband is in full time nursing school, and I work for local non-profits (two part time jobs)! We started getting serious with budgeting about a year and a half ago, and it has been really great for our lives. We use a free app (EveryDollar by Dave Ramsey) to plan and track our income and expenses, and prior to Stay at Home orders, used a cash envelope system for everything except gas (Costco gas doesn't accept cash but they're the cheapest price here!), utilities, and our phone bill. We have never struggled with misusing credit cards/credit card debt and always pay off our credit card on time, so we continue to use that and save up our cash back rewards (with a card that has NO annual fees)! We had gotten in a good enough habit of sticking to our budget using cash, that when quarantine hit, we figured we'd minimize trips to the bank and use only our credit card (plus some places are not accepting cash right now, and it's easier to wipe down your card!). This has been working fine for us since we're already used to tracking and staying in budget.
But what about when there's something you want that is not in the budget, and something that you don't really feel right about saving from income when you want to save for something more practical?! That's what I was faced when I wanted to get a Nintendo 64 (he's classy like that) for my hubby as a graduation from nursing school gift. I decided that I would find little ways to make extra cash that was outside of what we needed for our monthly budget, and I started EARLY. His graduation is set for December 2020 and I started saving in August 2019! Here is what I did:

-Using platforms like OfferUp or Facebook Marketplace:

• I sold books we were done with or never read (hello college textbooks!)
• Went through my closet and sold dresses I no longer wore (anyone been in so many weddings you feel a little like the woman in the movie 21 Dresses?)
• I let my parents know what I was doing, so they gave me items that were on their way out, which I was able to sell!
• One item I sold was a Smartwatch that I missed the return window on - I bought it on sale so was still able to get a good price for it and so was my buyer! Technically it wasn't "new money" but since we had already paid for it a few months ago it wasn't missed from the budget.

-I won a $20 Amazon gift card at an event that I stashed away

- My credit card had a small amount of cashback specifically accessible through Amazon

By December 2019 I had enough to buy a great, renewed Nintendo 64 with a controller via Amazon, completely by what I had earned! It was so much fun to be able to buy it guilt free, and made the gift that much more special. I ended up giving it to him at his halfway mark of nursing school, because he made it through his second semester of nursing school while facing 1) his school announced CLOSURE (he's able to continue through another program - post for a later time), 2) we spent an evening in the ER with my dad after a car accident (thanking God that everyone is OK!), 3) he continued to work at the hospital while in full time school, 4) we celebrated his birthday while in quarantine 5) AND OH YEAH COVID 19 HAPPENED, (which also shut down his clinicals and forced him to switch gears right before finals). How happy does he look with this gift?! It was all so worth it. 

Now we're trying to earn enought for a new phone for him and are already halfway there, using similar strategies, plus putting his birthday money and little rebates we've received!