My Fun & Leisure Budget

 

We are now in the middle of 2024 so I did some financial planning as well as a review of all of my little budgets and the one that I felt needed, or rather deserved, some tweaking is the Fun & Leisure Budget.  All of the others, with the exception of my pet food and supplies budget, are right on par, in fact I’m well under budget.  The pet budget is for another day and I’ll discuss it more at a later date.

 

Because I am doing so well overall with my 2024 budgets and I recently got a $2 an hour raise at my part time job I decided I could definitely expand the Fun & Leisure budget for the remaining half of 2024 and with good reason.  This budget encompasses my social life and all expenses related to that.  I include dining out, movie tickets and performances, extra fuel for daytrips, alcohol, soda, candy and ice cream purchases, etc.  It is my discretionary fund and also holds the caveat that no expense requires explanation or justification.

 

In the last two years I had been well under budget as far as the amounts I spent each month so at the beginning of the year it made sense for me to cull it a bit and bring it more in line with my actual spending.  However, this year has been a little different for me in that I’m branching out and doing more things.  I’ve been putting myself out there, trying new things and spending a lot more time with my friends.  Most of my friends love to go out to eat or to have a drink and an appetizer at a local restaurant and I don’t want to miss out on those opportunities.

 

In retirement it is really important to get out and do things.  Spending time with friends, making new friends, trying different things and treating ourselves to an occasional treat is important to our self worth and wellbeing.  Besides, we’ve work hard all of our lives to get to this point.  It doesn’t make sense to not make this a priority right now.

 

I decided I could easily afford to quadruple my monthly budget through to the end of the year and I’m really glad I did.  I also decided that if I go over budget a little bit on occasion I will not beat myself up over it.  As long as the money is there and I am not incurring any debt it is all good.  It is a subject that is very important to me.  Fun & Leisure.  Isn’t that what retirement is really all about?