• Home
• Budgets – Step 1

Affording the Big Things in Life

A friend recently told me about her bad day. The kids had been sick all night, her husband’s truck gave out as he headed off to work and when she went to wash the sheets from the sick kids the washing machine spilled all over the floor. That is definitely a rough day, but it could have been made much easier if she had already had a plan in place to help her save for the big ticket items that we all eventually have to purchase.

1. Start shopping before you need to shop. Get an idea of what the costs are for your big ticket items.


2. Break down to the cost of your big ticket items into monthly payments. If you know you will need new tires in the next year, then find out how much tires will cost and divide that by around 12 (or the number of months that will likely pass before you need to make the purchase. Now you know how much of a monthly payment you need to make for your tires.


3. Set up a separate account. There is no limit to the number of savings accounts that you can have. Open one for each purchase that you plan to make. Write a “payment” to these accounts each month as soon as your paycheck comes in. If you wait until the end of the month then the odds are that you will have spent the money without even realizing it. Set aside the savings up front.


4. Calculate the cost. Look at the actual cost of your money and your time before you make the purchase. You can do this by figuring out the amount of money you make per hour and then dividing the cost of the big ticket item by that figure. You might be willing to lower your requirements for the item or you might be motivated to take on some extra work to reduce the amount of time it will take you to save for the item.

The big ticket items do not have to put a big dent in your wallet. By planning ahead and making payments into a savings account you can have the finances available to make the purchases when you need them.

Did you enjoy this post? Why not leave a comment below and continue the conversation, or subscribe to my feed and get articles like this delivered automatically to your feed reader.