Last night my husband said he wanted to start a more active role in bill paying. You have no idea what a weight this is off my shoulders.

Once the house is sold we are going to sit down and try things differently. His idea is we would each get paid into our own accounts and then split the bills and pay them as they come sitting down on Saturday to do this.

I have agreed whole heartedly to this because once we do this I will not feel like I am holding the burden. My husband will have his extra money to Free spiritly spend and I will have my extra money to save for our sons college fund and whatever other savings I need to feel financial secure.

Right now his income is not enough to pay for half the bills, that is why I am waiting until after the house is sold. Right now I am handling everything and at the end I work extra hard to fill in the slack. Well once we are renting and the bills go down he will get whatever extra is in his account and if it is not enough like he feel it is not enough now then he will have to pick up his own slack.

Now that I know I am swimming to a goal instead of just endlessly swimming to keep my head above water, I have a new burst of energy to do what I need to do to make sure I get picked to stay on at my job.

On March 1st, since it is the start of a new month I will start tracking food spending. This I hope will allow me to get a real look at what we are spending on food.

I also want to track gasoline usage.

I am hoping that this weekend we will be able to do some furnature movement which will mean that I can clean up the house. When we reset up the office or family room I want to make an area to work so I can start posting items for sale on our towns free online classified listing.

Taxes!! I also want to sit down once the office or family room is set up and gather up all the tax forms and file our taxes.

See we textured and painted the ceilings in our basement and everything that was in the basement is piled in the livingroom upstairs and it is a nightmare. This weekend we hope to caulk the seams, paint the seams then clean up from the mess (Paper, painter plastic) wash floors and move furnature.

We are hoping to put our house on the market, Sell it, then rent an apartment for less and save the difference.

Lots of things to do this weekend and then hopefully start March 1st tracking expenses!

Hi I am trying to cut costs so I can work on financial security. Our take home income MAY drop this Dec due to a lay off so I am trying to be proactive. Right now I am just looking to have a solid budget and trim a little so the saving can go to an Emergency Fund. And later if the layoff happens will make more drastic changes closer to Dec.

Here is my budget could you help look it over and see if there is anything you would look into changing.

Expenses: Monthly
House:
Mortgage $1,060.00
Electric & Gas $126.50 *
Water/Waste $56.90 *
Phone $29.17
Cell $100.00 #
Internet $38.11

Dental - Premium $44.68
Sons Meds $50.00
Daycare $239.00
Child Support $679.00

Car:
Gas $180.00
Insurance $33.16 *
Tags $17.00 *

Misc:
School lunch $30.00 (Edited from $50)
School Snack $6.66-> $15 EVERY 9 WEEKS
Food $450.00 #
Cleaner/tolietry/Paper$10.00 #
Gifts $60.00 *
Clothes $20.00 *
Toys/Fun $20.00 *
Spending $ Husband $100.00
Husband Life ins $38.00
My Life Ins $36.50
College Fund $225.00

$3,647.68 (-$20)

House Repairs
Misc
Dental Cost Share

I was going to explain areas but decided not to make excuses and just let you attack it. But I will put * next to Averages and # next to estimates.

Take Home : $4160.02

Mortgage is Mortgage plus taxes & insurance as loan type requires an escrow account

(Changes) I cut the School breakfasts 2/25/2010 out of the budget. My husband is back home now so I dont have to drop my son off for breakfast at school in order to make it to work on time. This was actually more than $20 because he was buying extra al-carte items but my budget was base price.

Hi I really enjoy reading the blogs and hope to post and get some great feed back from the savingadvice blog members.