Since we don't have a home phone, cell phones are not an option. We had a 1400 nationwide family plan for my husband and myself through Verizon. All of our family is long distance and about 1/2 are also on Verizon. We do fairly well on our minutes, but occasionally go over and have to pay a good chunk for each minute we go over. I'm so excited that I have finally finished setting up our 10 numbers! If you don't know about it, it's 10 numbers (any network or even landlines) that you can add to your account that you can call with unlimited minutes, anytime. It's awesome. You can change the numbers anytime you want. I looked at the numbers we called the most, weeded out the Verizon wireless numbers (already get unlimited to those numbers) and added the top ten. I'm very excited, because this should prevent any more overages.

Also, while there I found out that we were eligible to save money on our monthly plan because of my husband's employer! Awesome! All I had to do was take in my husband's employee badge and now we'll be saving 19% each month! That's so awesome!

So, I am saving almost $30/month without anything changing with our service! I'm so excited. I just wish I knew about it sooner. Instead of wallowing in that though, I'll just be glad I know about it now. Yeah! That's $60 (if you count the cable changes from my last post) shaved off our budget without too much sacrifice.

I am working on cutting back our budget in order to accomodate the upcoming furlough as well as get us on a better footing in general. I just got off the phone with the cable company canceling the HD/DVR upgrade (we get standard cable as part of our rent) and renegotiating what we pay for our internet. In total that bill went from $58/month to $25. I figure we'd pay about $20-25 a month to get dial-up since we don't have a landline phone yet, so I'll just keep our faster cable internet at this renegotiated price (which has the taxes included) since I do make a little money through my online activities. It also helps tremendously with my couponing and saving money that way.

By the way, I spent $84 on food/household this weekend, but it would have been $316 without coupons. I was able to get what I needed, stock up on some items, get some free items to give to a friend in need and donate other freebies. Thank you coupons!!

Well, I just got two rebate checks totaling $42.44 in the mail, which should hopefully help see us through this pay period (one more week) without overdrafting. Fingers crossed.

Also, my husband's company just announced a mandatory one week furlough. We get to choose when between Sept-Dec. I'm looking at it as a positive, a challenge. If we can actually stick to our budget, we'll be fine. Also, I know that others are in a much more serious situation, we're blessed to have a job, even if it is requiring a furlough.

Anyway, that's the update for now...

I just found out that my husband's company will not be giving any raises or bonuses this year. We were wondering if we'd get a bonus. We definitely didn't expect to get the $5k that we've gotten in the past, but had hoped for a little something. We certainly didn't expect to hear that no one will get a raise. Oh well. I guess that just means we need to create our own raise by refiguring our budget.

I know that the last posts I have put up are all rather depressing, but I'm feeling optimistic again with the changes that are starting to take place...namely removing my husband from the checking account and feeling like this might actually work. Perhaps we are actually at the end of all the surprises, just in time for our one year financial anniversary (August 8th). I'll keep y'all updated on the new budget!

Well, it's been a little while (again). Things are still going along here. We are still paying off old debts and trying not to accrue new ones as we muddle through. It is still a very tough time, but I am happy to report one positive. We removed my husband's name from our checking account this morning. It was his idea as one way to try and give me a little more security. I hope it helps (and I can stick to my guns if more debts are remembered). I hope this is the turning point we need.

(If you don't know what I'm talking about when I say "old debts remembered" just look at my last post or two and it's all explained.)