Budget this!

So it looks like the challenge that the good Lord is sending my way is to learn how to Budget myself better. Of course this mean money, since Hubby's unemplyment checks just ram out and there is still no job in sight. (He even applied for an hourly position at Target and no call back yet.) So I've devised a monthly accounting for all of our set bills, rent, electric, gas, carpayments etc. We can make it on my salary alone, but it will be tight. I'll have to live within my budgeted allotments because we have very little wiggle room.

I'm also trying to budget my time more. SAK is missing his mommy a bit these days. I think he got used to me being home between the labor day holiday and taking my vacation and then the time I took off for my Grandparents funerals. I think this is the first full week I"ve worked in a month or so. So I want to give SAK as much mommy time as I can this weekend. After all he's only little like this for such a short time.

And finally I'm budgeting my food more. Or at least I'm going to try really hard to budget my food better. I have a tendency to not eat much in the first part of the day but then I get HUNGRY right around 4pm and eat eat eat until I'm stuffed. Then the guilties settle in and I get down on myself and swear to do better tomorrow and start off really strinct until.... well you get the picture. So I'm giving myself a food "budget" and will try to spread it out over the day so I'm not desperate to stuff my face as fast as I can late in the day.

This is going to be a challenge for me. I am not a creature of restraint. I prefer to just wing things. I don't even balance my checkbook. I just check my balance online periodically to make sure it's not too low and that there aren't any unusual charges. So actually planning a weeks meals in advance and going to the store with a list is going to be novel for me. I'm trying to remain optomistic about it, hoping that in the end this new found dicipline makes me a better person. We'll see.....