As another example as to how disorganized we were with our finances I have discovered that I have not accounted for DH's raise he received at least 6 months ago. It amounts to 251.00 per month increase!

This miss on my part further validates my complete ignorance and atrocious concept of budgeting. 251.00 per month is a lot of money in my world.

How did this happen?

DH receives one big pay every two weeks that includes his regular salary and his expenses. I was deducting his salary pre-raise and automatically transferring what was left (what I thought was all expenses) to his checking account to pay his AMEX.

Yes, he receives a paystub but we are both too stupid to pay close attention to it...yes we were that stupid. Amazing isn't it? Anyway, I think he must have somehow assumed that extra 125.00 per pay was his gas mileage. Also, we sometimes put personal expenses on AMEX so I think he thought maybe that money was for that?

Well, any "extra" he has been using to buy tools and things like that for his truck. Did he make an honest mistake? Absolutely. Some months his checking account was even overdrawn because we were charging so much to the AMEX and forgetting to budget for it.

Is this making sense?

Well, now that we are unraveling this tangled mess we call our finances, we are seeing so many things we never did in the past.

I am realizing that I never accounted for the girls lunches and all the misc. games we go to. Plus, DH's gas when he is home, and he has been working from home a lot more than he used to thus using more gas.

So, we now have 251.00 more every month to work into the budget!!! I almost screamed tonight when I realized it. DH and I worked for 2 long hours on our budget and I worked an extra 2 hours planning through March 2009. Of course, until March we will not truly feel the effects of this extra money because of paying for Christmas and his new tires which the money will come due on February 16th.

But after that... After that the braces will be paid off +200.00, the car will be paid off +310 and of course the +251.00

Total: 761.00

Nice. Major money to put to the credit cards. However, I will never count on any plan working out in this economy so I will just say lots of prayers!

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I am continuing my long drawn out quest to organize the laundry/clothes. The girls are coming along well but I haven't really started for myself. Luckily, I don't have many clothes but I NEED to organized our walk in closet and that starts with ripping up the nasty pee carpet!

C.'s fingers are doing better. We find out if they are broken tomorrow. I have a feeling they might be. Luckily it isn't a bad break like an arm or leg, wrist or ankle!

We have ZERO grocery money for the week and I have 20.00 for the girls lunches. I That leaves me 2.00 short but I can scrounge for change. As far as food, we should be covered with what we have in the house until Wednesday. So that means finding money for two meals (Wed. and Thurs.) I have a free turkey gift certificate from work that I haven't cashed in yet so guess what we will be eating Wed. and Thur.! TURKEY!!

I now have about 300.00 on savings 1 but I DO NOT WANT TO TOUCH IT! Some of it will pay the Christmas AMEX bill anyway.

So, my big challenge for the week will be surviving with 10.00 gas money and nothing else. I have a full tank but have lots of driving this week and will definitely use the 10.00

Can I do this? We will see.