Imagine that you are on track with your budget for the month and feeling amazing about it — as you should be! But then you go for your $200 quarterly hair appointment or your $500 annual credit card fee hits, and suddenly, your budget is busted.

These types of expenses feel like surprises, but they aren’t — they are regular, predictable expenses that should be part of your budget. The problem is that we are so focused on monthly budgets that we don’t plan for expenses that occur annually, quarterly, or every few months.