Saving Up...

We have lots of little savings categories that we're working on all the time, to make sure we have enough money for every upcoming expected expense.  They currently include:

• Gifts
• Car registration
• Savings (Really a small overflow category)
• Christmas (Halfway there, people!  We're going to do our best to simplify Christmas this year, and replace STUFF with time together whenever we can.)
• Roof (Our debt snowball is currently on hold as we madly set aside money for our roof - I honestly don't know if we're going to get this one covered without making use of a little debt from our home equity line of credit.  I'm sad about this, but it is what it is.  We're far from perfect, and I don't think our roof can make it through another winter.)
• School clothes (Preschool is out for the summer and we're saving the tuition up to buy school clothes for fall. I'm thinking about the best ways to do this, if you have ideas.)
• Oil changes
• Medical expenses (This is just kind of a fluff account, to cover expenses until Flex Spending checks arrive.)

I have an Awesome Friend (who just had a new baby, YAY! And probably isn't so much reading my silly little blog right now) who just keeps at least X amount of money in her checking account to cover this kind of thing.  I do not have as much self-control as Awesome Friend.  If I have money sitting around in my "regular" account, I'll just go to Target and stand out front throwing money at the building.  Effectively.