If you notice I suddenly stop posting, it's because you're not allowed to log in from the city of Enoch (I'm crossing my fingers that I'll still have internet access...or I'm not going!).
Really, the only thing I've had to really adjust my budget around is kids. They keep needing things like shoes and dance classes and diapers...and they are inexplicably older, more numerous, and more expensive every year...
After 41 years of marriage and 5 kids (three in college at the same time), I've got the budget mastered.
Hubby and I have a limited amount for fun money (if we want to do something more costly, we save for it). We each get X amount per week we can spend without having to account for it to the other.
The trick? See budget as another word for "limit". "This $$ amount is all we have to spend in this area. Sorry, but that's just the way it is. Not enough? Then somebody needs to learn to live on less or earn the money themselves".
We haven't used a credit card in over 20 years. Paying as you go really hampers free spending.
As for kids, check out garage sales and 2nd hand stores. They may not be the "latest" fashion, but most of them (for girls) aren't modest enough anyway.
I've found that higher priced shoes really do last longer, unless you have a rough and tumble kid that would wear out steel toed shoes.
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The stroke of the whip maketh marks in the flesh: but the stroke of the tongue breaketh the bones
