1. $323 to rent a cabin for the week in August. Well worth the cash, as all of DH's family is there renting cabins too. It will be a great time - but I thought it was more like $150/week, so I nearly fell over when I saw the cc bill. OUCH. But to put it in perspective, it's a week-long vacation, with family, without eating out at all. Food expense will be the same as regular grocery expenses since the cabins have a full kitchen. We can swim, lay on the beach, hike, have campfires, etc. at no extra cost.
2. $1443 for DH's summer class. The good side - we did not have to take additional student loans out. The downside: $643 on the credit card. This should be paid off next month though.
3. $50 for Mother's Day gifts. No surprise here, except that I forgot to include this in the budget! Oops.
4. $25 to refill my EZ Pass. My parents borrowed it twice to go out of state because it is so much easier than waiting in line for the tolls. I'll have to get them one of their own...
5. $60 to take the dog to the vet.

All in all, it was not a horrible month, except we ended up putting the cabin and tuition back on the credit card, which we haven't used in a few months. We could have used the emergency fund, but I figure we can always use that in 4 weeks to pay the cc if we can't swing it before the finance charges start. It seems that once the money leaves the EF, there is always something else to spend it on before replenishing the fund. I try not to take any money out at all.
Several years ago DH and I had nearly $30k sitting untouched in that fund. Just to toot our own horns for a minute, I think that's pretty impressive for a could in their mid-20s who never made more than $60k combined. However, two cars (one paid for in cash and one with a $5k downpayment), one family emergency ($5k), one set of braces ($4500), two years of fully funded Roth IRAs($16k), and a job loss/return to grad school ($$$$) later, we are down to $9k. That really depresses me, but then I have to force myself to look back at all we have been able to do, and know that we will get back there again. Right now, thought, I would really like to get that EF back to $10k. I don't know why, I just really like that number. I think I will hold off on that though, only because we are so close to paying off DH's car - less than $1500, I think, so the money would be better applied there. Sometimes I wonder if I am an idiot for letting so much money sit there untouched when we have so many student loans to pay off, but then again, the interest we are getting at HSBC is higher than the interest we are paying on the loans, so I guess it works out okay. Just my random ramblings...