Before deciding to leave his job to work at a start up for pennies, my husband and I took a looooong and painful look at our budget.  

*ahem*  

Yeah, as if we had a budget.  Honestly, we had a rough idea of what we spent monthly.  We were on top of our spending while he was unemployed last year, but that was more because we were on a spending FREEZE.  Only essential items were purchased.  We settled back into real life over the last 8 months and pretty much spent what we wanted on whatever we wanted...within reason.

I agreed wholeheartedly that we could start to budget and plan responsibly; without implementing a total freeze.

The first thing to go?  My $3.25/day latte.  I needed a reason to quit.  Done.  It’s been a whole week - thankyouverymuch.

Our biggest, unnecessary expense?  Eating out.  We discussed ways of cutting back in that department without totally feeling deprived.  Here’s what we came up with...

• We can still eat out 1x/week.  We will drink water, avoid apps, desserts and extras.  The kids never eat an entire meal, so they can share one and pick off from our meals as well.  Big time savings here.
• Breakfast is much, much cheaper to order out than dinner.
• Ice cream.  It’s summer here in New England and I’m pretty sure there’s a law on the books requiring each citizen to eat their weight in ice cream.  We want to cut back, while remaining law abiding citizens.  So, we will mostly buy and make our own ice cream.  When we go out, we will get one small dish with 2 sugar cones.  The kids each get a scoop into a cone and I get what left.  They can’t handle an entire ice cream on their own, and neither can I.  Instead of 4 separate ice creams, we’re purchasing 2.
• Meal planning is ESSENTIAL!  It is way too easy for me to suggest going out when I don’t have anything planned for dinner.  Way. Too. Easy.  Before going grocery shopping this week, we made a menu for the week.  We made an appropriate list and grabbed coupons before hitting the store.  We also ate a snack before going because we are both guilty of overbuying if we hit the store hungry.
• He’s going to bring a lunch to work everyday.

There are other areas where we can cut back as well...

For instance, I’m going to highlight my hair a little closer to my natural color so that I double or triple the time needed before a touch up.  And, instead of cropping my hair into a cute summer bob, I’m going to continue to grow it out and donate to Locks of Love.  Conveniently, it should be the appropriate length by the time he should be making a real salary again.

I will do my own pedicures this summer.  *boo*

I’ve started going to the library with Max.  We’re borrowing books instead of buying them.

We’re going to balance check books and discuss our status weekly.

Any ideas to help us out?