How Much Should One Be Spending on Lab Supplies?

What do academic institutions, hospitals and biotech companies all have in common? They all have labs. They all need to supply their labs with equipment and consumables. But how much should you budget or plan for? How does one know how much is too much? Are funds being properly allocated? If you are asking yourself these questions, then, like most of the rest of us, you have a budget. Now, that’s not a bad thing, having a budget, knowing what you can and cannot spend, and you may be a whiz at balancing your personal checkbook every month, but that does not necessarily mean that when it comes to balancing the budget in your lab everything is peaches and cream. Having a budget is a great start, staying on that budget, however, as you run the day to day operations of your lab, can be a little tricky. Below is a list of the average (in percentages) of what 147 different labs around the country spent their budgets on in 2012.

• 27% Instruments
• 18% General lab supplies
• 16% Life science reagents and kits
• 16% Chemicals
• 13% Equipment
• 6% Plasticware
• 5% Glassware

One way to efficiently manage your budget is a trick known as “calendarization.” This allows you to budget supplies on a regular monthly basis. Simply take your annual supplies in all categories and divide by 12. It can also be a very effective way to track any over or underspending during an given month for the year to date.