The pitfalls of a strict budget

I'm a cautious person by nature.  I like to have a plan.  I believe in a right way and a wrong way to do things.  Especially when it comes to the budget.  As I've mentioned several times before, this December is going to be tough.  I'm not sure if it will be possible to stay on budget.  I expect us to stay on budget every month.  But I know that it rarely happens for one reason or another.

Initially, I planned on buying my bridesmaid dress this month.  I'll be standing up in my best friend's wedding in May and will need to be properly clad in an aqua frock from David's Bridal.  This is not my first rodeo.  I know that David's Bridal really insists that you buy your dress months in advance but then the dress arrives within 2-4 weeks of ordering.  I have time.  So in light of our tight budget month, I'm nixing that item and moving it to the January budget.

After inputting all our known expenses we'll have $120 of overage to play with.  If I had bought the dress this month, we'd have $20.  Realistically, with additional travel and baking expenses we're going to go over in both groceries and gas money this month.  If I couldn't push back the dress purchase, we would have been in trouble.  Well, that is if we were on a truly strict budget...

I try to keep a sneaky backdoor stash of money.  It isn't really sneaky or backdoor since I'm well aware of it as is my husband but it helps me not to raid it if I think of it that way.  It's a mini savings account.  $50 per month goes to keep it replenished.  We also use our cash back rewards from our credit card for this same purpose.  Having this extra money ensures that we don't take a major financial tumble due to being a little short one month.  So far, it has been enough.