I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I don’t have a budget. I’ve seen the forms, I’ve read about other peoples’ budgets, but I just can’t bring myself to make one for our family. It just seems too overwhelming for me. I think probably my biggest obstacle with the budget is the revolving parts of the budget, such as the electric bill. Do you allow more money in the budget than you think it will take? We are currently trying to live off of one income, sort of as a trial run to see if it’s possible for me to be a stay at home mom when we have children. I’ve got my paycheck directly deposited into my “secret account” at our bank, so that if we need access to it, it’s not hard to get to, unlike our ING savings account. We want that to be hard to access! I would love to get a budget going, but I don’t know where to start. What are your favorite budget forms? Any tips?

I was looking at this map the other day about which states are in a recession, and surprisingly, the state I currently live in is listed “at risk”. Thankfully. That doesn’t mean were in the clear though. I find it interesting that Arizona is in a recession. I didn’t think that was one of the states affected. Of course Michigan and Florida were no big shocker. With gas prices at $4 a gallon, I wonder how people are going to cope.  I’m anxious to see if gas prices ever go down, or if we are going to never see below $3.50 a gallon ever again.  What are your thoughts?  Will gas stay at least $4 a gallon permanently?

Today I went to Subway for lunch with a friend. We both are frugal, so we decided we would split a $5 footlong sub. When we got there, we noticed a new sign: $5 footlong for certain sandwiches. What a rip off! Just a few weeks ago we had ordered an Italian BMT and got it for $5, but today it wasn’t on the list, so we would have had to pay full price. We opted for the Spicy Italian Sub instead because it was on the $5 list. We also ordered chips and a drink (I had water) and that was $2 extra. When they told me my total was $9 and some change, I was so confused. I questioned it and somehow he rang it up incorrectly. Needless to say, my lunch at Subway was not all that enjoyable. I felt cheated that they were doing limited subs for $5. I guess the commercials are their way of roping you in and then of course you get your favorite sub. At least I paid attention and realized the [...]