One penny, pushed upside down into the tread of the truck's front tire. That was Tyler's whole tire inspection on Sunday. If you can see the top of Lincoln's head, the tread is too thin. He squinted at it for a while and said, "Not yet. Maybe two years." Then he put the penny in his pocket, and later, in the jar.
That's the kind of bill I've been thinking about this fall. Not the monthly ones. The ones that only come once a year, or once every couple of years, and always seem to land when the checking account is already tired.
Last December nearly flattened us. The county's personal property tax on our two vehicles and Christmas for both families landed in the same three weeks. None of it was a surprise. We knew it was coming. We just hadn't put anything aside for it.
Finding the once-a-year bills
I went back through last year's checking and credit card statements and wrote down everything that showed up only once. Then I asked Tyler what was coming that hadn't happened yet, which is how the truck tires got on the list. Here's what made the cut:
| What | When | Cost | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vehicle taxes and plates | December | $655 | $55 |
| Moose's checkup | Spring | $240 | $20 |
| Christmas | December | $300 | $25 |
| Truck tires | In about two years | $760 | $35 |
| Renters policy | May | $168 | $14 |
| Total | $149 |
The rule is simple. Take what it cost last time, divide by the number of months until it's due again, and round up to the next $5. Rounding up means there's usually a little extra, and that little extra covers it when the price goes up, which it always does.
Notes on each one
Taxes and plates. In Missouri you pay personal property tax on your vehicles to the county every year, due by December 31, and you can't renew your plates without the paid receipt. Last year the tax on the truck and the CR-V was $560, and plates for both were about $95. That's $655 a year, or $54.58 a month, so $55.
Moose. His food and his flea and heartworm pills are already in the monthly budget at $45. This is his yearly checkup in the spring: the exam, his shots and a heartworm test. Last time it was $240, so $20 a month.
Christmas. We're capping it at $300 this year for the two of us and both families. That's $25 a month.
Tires. The CR-V got new ones in March, so the truck is next. Four tires for a pickup run about $760 installed around here. Over two years that's $31.67 a month, so $35.
The renters policy. We pay it once a year when it renews in May, $168. That's the $14 a month that's been in our budget all along. It's already exact, so it stays $14 and doesn't get rounded.
A few things didn't make the list on purpose. Oil changes, Tyler's work boots and birthday presents are small enough, and regular enough, that they just live in the monthly budget. If a once-a-year bill is under about $100, I'd rather not track a separate fund for it.
Where the money sits
All of it goes into one plain savings account at our local bank, separate from checking and separate from the emergency fund and the house fund. On the 1st, one transfer of $149 goes in. In the sheet, each fund has its own row with a running balance, so the account shows one number, but I always know what part of it belongs to Christmas and what part belongs to the county.
This is different from the emergency fund. The emergency fund is for things we don't see coming. These are things we can see coming from a long way off.
Starting late
The catch is that we started in October, and the two biggest bills, the county and Christmas, both land in December. Two months of $55 and $25 is $160 toward $955. We'll find the other $795 in November and December's regular budget, which means fewer trips to Columbia and a lot of soup.
Next year, when the tax bill comes in the mail, the money will already be sitting there. $149 a month sounds like a lot until you remember it's going to get spent either way. The only choice is whether it goes out all at once in a panic, or a little at a time on the 1st.
