At the start of every year, we review our zero-sum budget from the previous year and set up a fresh one. Not much usually changes, maybe we add a bill or cancel a subscription. The exception to this would be when our incomes change. But let’s be real: life doesn’t always stick to the plan. Sometimes you end up needing a new car sooner than expected, or an emergency wipes out your savings. While every penny of our income is assigned to something—a goal, an expense, or a fund—we also know where we can make sacrifices when inevitable unexpected expenses pop up.

Here’s our monthly base budget for the current year.

Pretty soon after I created this, I racked up a $3,900 dental bill (ouch). Something to note is that I made sure to put that charge on a credit card with 0% interest for the next 8 months. Having good credit is important and this situation proves it; I’ll explain why later. Below you’ll see what our financial situation was when I got the bill. You might notice that Josh’s savings is much lower than mine—that’s because he recently bought a truck after selling his car to his brother. If you’re curious about how we navigated that process and scored a great deal, check out our story in “Private Car Sales 101: Avoiding Lemons and Finding Gems.”

Prior Year Financial Wrap-up

Bianca Savings       $7,228.00
Josh Savings          $2,043.00
Emergency Fund    $1,806.00
House Fund         $20,028.00
Car Fund             $560.00
Vacation Fund        $209.00

While it’s easy to think the worst when you’re looking at a bill three times higher than you expected it to be, but if you can, pause and don’t make any immediate decisions. Most of the things we worry about never actually happen, and the ones that do? You can usually manage them with a clear head. So, give yourself time to go home, pray and look through your finances. Ideally you’d take at least a few days.

In my case, I started remembering little ways we could pull together money:

• I’d just signed up for an HSA with $600 in it.
• We had $1,800 in our emergency fund, so I planned to use $900 of that. *We’d still be contributing $300 monthly.*
• Josh was okay with me using the interest from our high-yield savings accounts, which would conservatively net $800 in eight months.
• And lastly, at the end of last year, when discussing our vacation plans Josh let me know he wanted that fund to be used for exploring Florida. We already had our destinations and had divided up the money accordingly but considering flights would only be needed for our trip to Key West our budget for each trip could be trimmed down. Instead of putting $500 in each month we decided it would be just fine to lower it to $315. That freed up another $1000.

By taking a step back and reflecting, we covered 85% of the bill with minimal sacrifices. I’m still working on the last $600, but I’m hopeful my tax return will cover it. If not, I’ll use three months of my savings. Josh and I each get $200 a month to spend however we please. The key takeaway? Big expenses don’t have to wreck your finances if you give yourself time to breathe, reassess, and get creative.