Do You Budget For Field Trips?

Do you budget for school field trips throughout the year? What about school pictures? Dances? Fundraising drives? Or does the cash you spend for these things come out of other budget categories?

Although our youngest children are 11 and we’ve been dealing with the Ninja Expenses associated with school aged children for over a decade now, we never really got around to putting together a budget for these things. We just spend the money and pull it out of another budget category. This has been a pretty sloppy way to do things, so I think I’m going to change it up a bit.

I’ve got a savings account that I never keep any money in… it just sits there with a few cents to keep it open. As of today, this is my new handy dandy School Expenses Savings Account. I’m putting $25 a month into this account, and it will be used for nothing but school expenses. I know it won’t cover EVERYTHING, but it should cover pictures, field trips, dances, and the like. I’m even going to contribute during the summer, so that I can cover the beginning of the year expenses fairly easily in the fall.

How do you handle these expenses? Do you plan ahead or react when they happen?

On an unrelated note, I found THIS recipe for Heart Shaped Cakes on Macheesmo.com (Thanks ProBlogger!) and want it.