Preppy Budget Fail

Since the new year I've been using the website mint.com to manage my budget and personal finances. Mint makes budgeting fun and easy. Their interactive charts and graphs motivate me to keep my budget under control, and since the website links to all of my loan accounts, credit card accounts, and bank accounts I can track my networth and spending without having to type in every single item.


Here's my challenge however, this month and next month are heavy birthday months around here. And birthday's mean traveling and events. When I planned my budget, I did include an amount for birthdays, it's a tight budget, and I was thinking it would work for one individual, but when I come to months like this I realize that there is more than one person who has a birthday. And that the related expenses of travel, and eating out, around birthdays aren't in my budget. 


I'm sort of feeling a big budget failure. And it stinks, because the only area in my budget that can give to accommodate this extra spending is my savings for the big move for medical school. It's discouraging to feel like I can't even stick to a simple budget, but it's also discouraging to feel like I can't give generously to those around me. I'm trying to do some re-evaluation around how much I know I'll need for the big move. I know several of my readers have made some big moves recently and I was hoping you could share with me approximately how much money you ended up needing. Luckily the preppy boyfriend and I are moving together which means splitting expenses. But he tends to put it on credit cards and pay it back later, and I'd rather save up for it now and have the money cash in hand. We're planning on renting a home or townhouse not an apartment (apartment living with three dogs is just too challenging for us). So readers, any helpful feedback in planning for my big move?