A few things going on in my world

I am loving this budgeting stuff with my total money makeover! Not only can I set up my budget but I can see how long it will take me to pay off all of my debt. I love it! I have needed this in my life and it is really good at keeping me motivated.
I met with the school counselor at the middle school this morning. My son is interested in an advanced science class next year. We were told in December that there would be a program he would work on at home and submit. Today that has all changed. It seems the program our school has used in the past went bankrupt so they found a new one and that one makes each child take the courses at school in addition to their core classes. The counselor is trying to get it set up as a summer school program. My son is already in advanced English but wants more. He's looking at taking a full year of German next year which is a high school credit in addition to Advanced English and Science. Okay, I'll stop bragging but I am a very proud mama.
I returned to third grade again today. The children were headed to music class. I will meet with the principal on Thursday morning and spend 45 minutes in each classroom after that. I'm hoping to find out what resources are available to assist my daughters in their education. Also possibly having them tested to make certain that there are no learning disabilities.
I had a long phone call with AT&T wireless this a.m. as well. They were calling me wanting me to pay my bill. What they got was an earful of how horrible their service is. I'm very unhappy with AT&T and the iphone in general. I have to call them back from a land line this afternoon to try to troubleshoot the problem. I think for the amount of money it costs to have two iphones that they should at least work in my home and at my husband's employment. His phone is a business phone and the two places he spends all of his time (home and work) get no reception. FYI I am waiting on a direct deposit into my account today so I'm not neglecting to pay AT&T due to this problem. Three months ago when I had a conversation with them they told me my only option was to get rid of the iphones and terminate my contract in which they planned to bill me for breaking the contract. That is NOT customer service! Wish me luck with this ;)
I hope to have some down time with the husband tonight. The hot tub is sounding really good about right now. I'm getting a haircut tomorrow morning and then we will spend the day together. The best part is we have no plans!!!
Ravn, I hope you and all your crew are feeling better. I'm praying for all of you guys!

Back to Reality

 It's a new year and as I promised I'm more determined than ever to get my budget under control. We are attending Financial Peace University once a week for 13 weeks. We started this last Wednesday. We were just getting started and the power went out! LOL So we went around the room and told who we were, why we were there and what he hoped to learn from this. It was a good time with good people. I'm looking forward to next week. We are assigned homework each week to do during the week. It consists of some reading and this week we had to put down on paper a mini budget. This made me sick and I've been thinking maybe I should get a job at night so that I can be home when my children are, do homework and prepare them a healthy dinner meal. The husband hates this idea so we shall see how this month goes. 

 I ordered our AFM's boxes this month and a fruit and veggie box. I get a recipe menu from menus4moms. For a very small fee they give you two weeks of dinner menus that use your AFM box and a few extra recipes as well. A regular main box is $30 and the fruit and veggie box is $21. You cannot purchase all of that food in the grocery store for the cost that AFM charges. Their website says you can feed a family of four for a week/box. I've had better luck and been able to feed my family almost all month on two main boxes and a fruit and veggie box. Now I do have to buy a few extras for the dinner meals and stuff for the children's lunch everyday. I'll have a better idea of my grocery budget after this month. 

 Our first major step for this month (after writing out a budget) is to save $1,000 for a rainy day and put it in a savings account. We are working on that now. Our goal is to be close to credit card debt free by December 2009.  That will take a lot of frugal living to make it happen. Maybe it's unrealistic and it may change as we get further along through this course. It's a goal and that's a step in the right direction. 

 We are also trying to bundle up our t.v. internet and directv. We want to go with Verizon since FIOS is now available here but I want to keep our directv since we have dvr's with them. I may end up giving it up if the deal isn't worth it. Anyone else doing a bundle with Verizon? This is just one of the ways we are looking into to save a little extra cash each month. 

 Friday I had my second spinal injection. I spent most of the weekend on bedrest and am feeling much better today. I really hope to get quite a bit of relief now that both sides have had the injection. I see my spine specialist on the 30th of this month to re-evaluate. I plan to be riding my bike with the kids by midweek and trying out my Jillian Michaels Wii Fit game by the end of the week. I hope everyone has a great week!