What if you happen to have a lot of money leftover each month, or find yourself with a large tax refund, or maybe a bonus you weren’t expecting?  This is not an excuse to waste your money.  That is, this isn’t the opportunity to buy that expensive car, buy that vacation home, or whatever. Duh. You already knew that. But, what if you are looking to start a business, or you want to get out of debt, or want to have a down payment for a house?  These are all reasonable things to use that chunk of money toward. But won’t that mean you will overspend your annual core budget?  Probably. Remember, the point of your core budget is to function as a guide for your lifestyle – to keep you from allowing your expenses to run away until you find that most of your money goes toward you.  It is also meant to rein in, but not necessarily eliminate, your luxury purchases. 

So you can see, how we handle one-time chunks of money could short circuit the whole process if we use them to buy the things and do the stuff we committed not to do as part of Humble Living. 

Here’s how I’d approach this scenario:

1. Don’t get wrapped up in doing “the right thing” or “the wrong thing.”  Focus on your intent. Are you using this money to enrich yourself with luxury goods, hoard cash, or have status symbols?  How you answer that question will make what to do self-evident. 

2. Consider only using money like this to eliminate debt, save for a major purchase, build/re-build an emergency fund, or catch up on retirement savings. Stick to things that aren’t going to be recurring. 

3. Consider giving some portion of that money to the organizations and/or people you support.  

4. If you use this for debt reduction, house down payment, and the like, make sure you aren’t justifying a purchase you wouldn’t ordinarily be ok with. For example, as I have said before I am a car fan. I personally won’t buy a luxury car (you really don’t get anything more from them other than status), and coming into a bunch of money wouldn’t be an excuse for me to do so, either through lowering monthly payments or outright purchase. Using my core budget as a guide, I wouldn’t normally be able to afford it, nor would I choose to afford such a purchase. And I won’t if I came into money.  

There isn’t a clean cut right or wrong answer on what to do, and that’s ok.