Home Improvement Budgeting

So, I was reading this post over at Teal & Lime that talked about budgeting and spending money on home improvements. It summed up exactly how I feel every time I spend a little bit of money on our home. For example, I have had my eye on this bench from Target, yes, Target. Not Ethan Allen or Raymour - Target. At full price it's not expensive but it's still more than I feel comfortable spending. In the grand scheme of things, the price isn't so bad (especially since I never buy anything at full price, waiting for a sale is always the way to go!) With all that being said, I have been looking at this bench for months. It has gone on sale, gone off sale, been back ordered, back in stock, and there was even a point where I thought it was going to be discontinued. I never pulled the trigger. Why? Because spending any kind of money for a piece of furniture that we don't need is really hard to justify.

H and I are BIG budget people. We have pretty much every dollar of what we earn designated for a specific category like the mortgage, cable, food, car payment, etc. We know where our money goes every month which is why I know we are ahead of the game. It took us a while to get there but we finally have a budget and we are sticking to it. We also have a "home improvement" budget that we try to keep to. That includes random trips to Lowes and we never walk out of there spending less than $100. I don't know how they do it, but they seriously suck the money right out of my wallet! I'm getting off track here. What I am trying to express is that Teal & Lime really made me realize that it's OK to spend a little money on our home.

If you want to read the full post check it out here. I highly recommend reading it, and the other posts on this blog too! But one thing I want to highlight from this post was that we spend so much money yearly on random things like haircuts, gym memberships, car payments, you name it. We invest in ourselves so why don't we invest in our house? Now, I'm not talking frivolous spending, I'm talking significant purchases that will make a difference in our home and our everyday life.

This is how I justify spending a little bit of money on the place I call home. Try to ask yourself these few questions next time you are shopping for your home:

• Is it going to make an otherwise unusable space usable?
• Is it something I have had my eye on for a while now and is finally on sale to a point that I can justify spending that amount of money on that particular item?
• Is it the one piece that will tie everything together? (we all know how difficult that is to find)
• Does it fit into my budget?

That last one is the kicker! Like I said, H and I have a set budget for what we feel we are comfortable spending in a given month on our home, but that doesn't mean we don't ever make a bigger purchase. We just try to plan ahead for it. So maybe I won't buy anything for a few months and then I will have enough to purchase that piece of furniture that I have had my eye on but was too pricey to begin with. I still ask myself those other questions to see if it is truly worth my hard earned money but it helps to know that we can afford it and aren't breaking the bank just to get our house in order. 

It is still tough for me to pull the trigger on certain things (like that Target bench), but budgeting really does help. Now, I could do a whole series on budgeting because it really is a beast on it's own but that is another story for another day. Decorating your home on a budget can be a daunting task. It's so overwhelming with the "but it's so expensive" or "I want to do it right, so I am going to just wait" or "why start at all if we can't afford to finish it". People, it doesn't have to be that way! If you budget home improvements into your monthly expenses and use that money for your home, then before you know it, your house will start to take form. And you will be happier for it, trust me! 

Happy Friday!

JP