Finances

Thirsty Thurs! For some reason I just love Thursday's...I think it's the anticipation of the weekend that gets me, I dunno really I just like today for some reason ;) I also love Miss Coleys' Cubicle to Cocktails spreads

Oh wait! Maybe it's because yayyyy baby Carys is here!!!! Congratulations to my beautiful friend Dana and her awesome husband Terrell as they welcomed their second cutie patutie into the world this morning.  I have already received pictures of this little doll and must say, she's freakin adorable - lookin just like her big brother B.  Cannot WAIT to see her chubbs in person!

I want to discuss finances. Mine, yours, systems, procedures - all that.  I know that hubbs and I are ALWAYS trying to discover new ways to save, spend and allocate and we just can't seem to get it right.  I think its discipline that we are lacking.  We say we'll do 'this' and we totally end up doing 'that' instead.  We are both the spending type and so I'm pretty sure that's why our plans never work.  Unfortunately our monthly bills have just gotten outrageous! I mean, I simply cannot believe how much money we spend just on 'life' every month - between car payments, daycare, mortgage, utilities, cell phones, cable, etc. etc. etc. I feel like we're left with blah and it just stinks. 

I'm desperately trying to find a way to cut back on things and so

• I cut out premium channels (HBO, Showtime, Starz) then I realized that once Entourage comes back on we'll have no way to watch it - so that didn't work.
• I cut out internet because we both have blackberry's that cost an extra $30/each per month and plus I have internet at work, so what's the use, right? Yeah well BB's suck 80% of the time so we're always in some sort of an annoying jam - that didn't work
• I cut out gym membership and bought workout DVD's - yeah that lasted about 2 weeks, so that didn't work
• I cut back our minutes on the cell phone...and for the first 3 months we went over minutes racking up more charges then we would have with the bigger plan - that didn't work

So I'm feeling a bit defeated...what do we do? hmmmm...its not like I can stop sending my booger to school or return one of our cars? And not to mention I feel like we spend a small fortune on groceries? I mean, why the EFF is it so god damn expensive to eat healthy? Ice Cream and snacks are A L W A Y S on sale - is lettuce? how about apples? Tofu? Organic? N E V E R R R R

So my post today is really a question for my followers - how do YOU budget your money? I don't want your personal info more or less if you use a system or have basic principals and how do you stay focused and on plan?  How do you (or plan to) cut back and how do you keep your grocery bills at bay?

Let me know!