Budgets are meant to be followed, but also to create freedom! March 2020, we intentionally broke our budget on hobbies.
March 2020 was crazy.
So last month was wild. Here in New England, they say March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb. That is referring to the weather; this year March was all lion, and a very angry one.
In the midst of all of this we were able to Break our Budget! This month, on hobbies.
What is BREAK YOUR BUDGET?
BREAK YOUR BUDGET is a goal I have in 2020 to change my perspective on money. I have never really been a spender. Now that I have a desire to save and make good choices with our finances, I found myself uncertain at times about when it is best to save and sacrifice or splurge and spend.
This series is dedicated to intentionality. This means that every now and then, Katie and I will choose one area of the family budget and intentionally go over in that category for a month. The goal of this exercise is to practice a little more detachment and spark a little more joy.
What are Our Hobbies?
Andrew’s Hobbies
My hobbies consist mostly of creating anything. I always like to try new skills, and learn new things. This is rarely expensive, as there are an infinite number of resources online and books in our library (both public and domestic) to read.
Music and Words
Writing was always my least favorite subject in grade school. I blame this on my hand cramping from pencils, limited time on writing prompts, and the graphite all over my incorrectly positioned left hand.
Music changed my perspective. I started playing guitar at age ten, and by high school I began writing super cheesy songs. Yes, they were terrible, but the creative spark and the desire to share something I created was there.
Since I started this website last year, I unexpectedly found typing about my thoughts on the subject of Faith and Finances to be fun. I felt like this area of conversation was needed, and I liked talking.
Writing has become a surprising leisure for me now. After enjoying the act of organizing my thoughts and forming them into this website, I wanted to have a platform to share more than just thoughts on one topic. It was time for a home base of sorts, so I created my own personal website.
Katie’s Hobbies
Katie also loves to create. In fact, that is the career that she stumbled into after a stint as a radiologist. Outside of her day job in social media marketing, she likes to make things look nice including her family and the style of our home.
Photography
Living with me and an infant, the nice things don’t always stay nice. In order to capture these nice things, Katie has been learning about photography. Having original photos is also a huge part of her day job, so this is a dual purpose area. Check out one of her photos! By having her own camera, she can work more efficiently for her job as well as capture moments from our home life with Baby Flame growing up more and more each day.
While photography was Katie’s idea, it is actually a win for me too. I like to dabble in making nice photos, although I gave up photography as major hobby a while ago because I found the post processing too tedious and would never do anything with the pictures I took. Either way, the camera is getting plenty of use from both of us!
Horses
Katie grew up always having animals around. She loves the “doggos” and “little fluffs” which consists of basically any animal. Most of all, she loved riding horses. This month we finally pulled the trigger to get her set up to ride again.
Rhode Island is not known for its rodeo scene and Western riding that Katie grew up with. Taking advantage of the location and trying something new, Katie wanted to learn to ride English. This required a decent amount of gear, but with some research and some luck we found some deals that allowed us to break our budget on a discount! All that was left was finding an instructor, and she was off to her first lesson a week later. She got two lessons in before March went crazy!
Baby Flame’s Hobbies
Baby Flame’s hobbies have mostly been being held or bouncing in he boucer while Dad plays music until now, but she has decided to expand her horizons this month.
Solid Foods
Baby Flame contributed to the hobbies portion of the budget with a food processor and some baby spoons for her future adventures exploring solid food!
The Budget Breakdown
As I mentioned, our family’s hobbies don’t tend to be of the expensive variety. That made this a super easy softball pitch of a budget to smash. Here is what we were starting with.
Original Hobbies Monthly Budget
Misc books / Music – $15
Home Beautifying (mostly seasonal) ~ $30
Beer / Bourbon – $30
Nice Coffees – $20
Hosting for this website ~ $5
Total Average Monthly Hobby Budget ~ $100
note, ~ indicates items that don’t appear every month, but are averaged out to the monthly cost
Okay, that is a pretty lame start. Do we even hobby!?
Broken Budget March 2020
Because seasonal purchases will still be there, we still have to account for them, even though we didn’t spend extra on them this month. Here is the breakdown of our March hobbies budget compared to average.
| HOBBIES | Typical | March 2020 | Difference |
| Misc Books / Music | $15.00 | $14.96 | -$0.04 |
| Home Beautifying (mostly seasonal) | $30.00 | $30.00 | $0.00 |
| Hosting for websites | $5.00 | $5.00 | $0.00 |
| Beer | $30.00 | $26.08 | -$3.92 |
| Coffee | $20.00 | $0.00 | -$30.00 |
| Personal Website Domain (2 Years) | $0.00 | $23.98 | $23.98 |
| Camera | $0.00 | $280.00 | $280.00 |
| Horseback Riding Gear (boots, pants, socks) | $0.00 | $117.18 | $117.18 |
| Helmet | $0.00 | $20.00 | $20.00 |
| Lessons x 2 | $0.00 | $110.00 | $110.00 |
| Food Procesor | $0.00 | $40.00 | $40.00 |
| Baby Spoons | $0.00 | $2.38 | $2.38 |
| TOTAL | $100.00 | $669.58 | $569.58 |
Rarely would I call $500 over budget a success, but we did it!
Most of these purchases are one time purchases, while others might stick around. It is nice to know that we can return to a $100 budget if we need to.
In fact, at the time of writing this, horseback lessons are postponed indefinitely, but Katie found a flexible teacher who will let her schedule lessons as we want. Baby Flame and I look forward to going to the farm and watching a lesson in the nice weather once all of our quarantining is done with.
Real Lasting Value
Choosing Our Purchases
None of these purchases were on a whim just because we decided to go over our budget. We thought about what would give us lasting value and what we would actually stick with.
We were thinking about value.
What are Things Worth?
This is an idea that I heard about in high school when I heard someone justifying a $60 pair of jeans.
The theory was that you can take $0.50 off the price every day that you wear them and another $0.50 off any time someone compliments them.
My wardrobe is not very compliment-worthy most of the time, but I still remember the statement, so it must have some significance.
I like the idea of setting values to the variables of function, sentiment, and even potential.
Function
So our camera, if used 1,000 times in the next few years would come down to $0.28 per use. For most people who take great photos with their iPhone, this probably is not worth the value. This is kind of the reason we were not ready to dive into the high end cameras with a ton of gear for a few grand. We’re dipping our toes and getting a feel for what’s out there. Instead, we opted for this camera, which we found lightly used on Facebook Marketplace for a tenth of the cost, lenses, and bag included. We love it so far!
Sentiment
So no one will be complimenting our beginner camera or how I look wearing it, but there is already some sentiment in it. When I see the camera, I don’t see $0.28 per use like I look at gas prices or something. I already think of hanging out in the park with the family.
Family photos and being more confident and intentional while taking them adds value to that little camera. By being intentional, we are not just scrolling through our apps to get to the camera on our phone and being interrupted by texts during the shot. It is nice to have a device that does what it is supposed to do. The camera, when not in use, doesn’t steal our attention the way a phone can.
I am not sure how to price it, but sentiment gives me confidence that the purchase is valued at more than we paid for it.
Potential
This one I added, cause I don’t think my jeans would ever earn me anything.
As I mentioned, Katie takes photos for her job. Last year, she borrowed a similar camera to do her work, or she made do with her phone camera.
Now, being more free to take photographs for her job, Katie has had opportunities to shoot photographs on days when she otherwise would not have worked. She is also able to take her time to do better work because she is not on a loaner camera. Therefore, if she continues to pursue this hobby and learn, she could utilize this skill to earn in the future.
March 2020 Overview
I have my goals of writing more, Katie has been able to dive deeper into her passion for horses, and Baby Flame is trying new foods! This has been a good month that we were able to pack into the first two weeks before we all went on lock down.
I am happy with the value that we got out of breaking the budget!
My new website! Andrewlaflamme.com is the place where I’ll be exercising my writing muscle. It will also serve as a general “home base” for me. The goal of writing something every day will need to involve more than just articles about finance. This gives me the liberty to break theme and write about music, travels, or even just random thoughts about my shoes ripping at work symbolizing my really rough week. It’s still in the works and pretty bare, but is open for checking out.
