I get "found money" - money outside of our normal income - in a couple different ways. Birthday gifts and blog income are probably the most common ways that we get money in that's not normally expected.
For years, I have noticed that I have a terrible tendency to double dip my found money. For example, I might get $100 for my birthday, and I will buy a Groupon for $60 for a couple massages. Then I will splurge on an extra round of swimming lessons for Baby M for $50. Then I will treat myself to a couple of lunches out, "with my birthday money", for maybe $30. Suddenly, I've spent $140 of that $100! I forget each unusual purchase almost as soon as I've made it, so in my mind, the entire $100 remains unspent.
I used to have this problem with mystery shopping money, which was a big problem because I was actually doing that to help ends meet, so I couldn't afford to splurge that income at all. I finally ended up creating special budget categories that were ONLY filled with that money - so if I didn't put the mystery shopping income there, there was nothing to be spent on clothes for that month, or whatever it was.
Now I don't keep a strict written budget so much anymore, much less an envelope system, so that is a little harder to come by. I'm trying to pay closer attention to my habits, but I think next time I get "free money" I will take it out in cash and only spend it in cash - when it's gone, it's gone, and that will be the end of it.
Do you find that you tend to do some double accounting when it comes to found money?
You know it's funny that you mention that because I used to double spend birthday money too sometimes. Some people call it Mental Money Math. I came over from NZMuse when I saw the title of your post, because I did a post called "Found Money" too last week. I wanted to see if we were talking about the same thing.
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