Money Obedience

The other day a big box arrived at our house. My wife knew what was in the box since she ordered it, but I did not know what was in that shipment. Lo and behold the lady of the house had ordered a huge bag of flour, the kind you only see in bakeries or pizza places. I think this was a bag of 50 pounds of gluten-free flour. Let me say right off the bat, gluten free flour is a lot more expensive than regular flour and a lot harder to find. We need this flour since we have a couple people in our household who do not function well when they eat gluten, but who still want to enjoy the pleasures of bread and baked goods. Unfortunately gluten-free baked goods bought in a store are both expensive and not that tasty. That is why the lady of the house has taken up yet another role or job. She has become the resident gluten-free baker. After some experimenting she does a swell job whipping up tasty pancakes, cookies, sandwich breads, and challah. (Well, some things can be whipped up faster than others.)

Anyway, back to the big bag of flour. As it turns out the price of this gluten-free flour mix was relatively low: $2.60 per pound including shipping (because it was on sale). This was a bargain way too good to pass up. We are fortunate enough that we have enough storage space to keep so much flour cool and dry so that we can use it up over time as wifey bakes away.

Now, how do we accommodate for such an unusual expense? We don’t really have a budget line that would allow for such an expense in our monthly budget. But we don’t care about that since we have some unusual and irregular expenses throughout the year. (For example, we pay our various insurance premiums only once a year.) This flour purchase just happens to be one that also falls into an unusual category, i.e. “groceries.” Needless to say we will exceed our budget for groceries this month, but it will even out over time. And that is the most important thing to us: not to exceed our budget over time. We would not want to pass up such an offer just to stick to a rigid monthly budget. The bigger picture is much more important.

Come to think of it, I have another idea what to do with this large expense. Our little boys used the large shipping box from the flour delivery and made themselves a “house” out of it. They colored all over it with markers, and the house has already given them many hours of entertainment. So, maybe I should split up the expense between two budget items: “groceries” and “toys”! I’m pretty sure we might get back on budget then!