I have another $38 for my sahm acct. I'm not sure what I'm up to at this point. I'll have to ask for the balance when I make the deposit.

Thanksgiving was nice and busy busy busy. We had a nice visit with my inlaws and DS enjoyed them, too. We put up a xmas tree (artificial $200!!! GULP). I'm trying to look at it as an investment because it will save us $$ in the long run since real trees are around $70.

I have been trying to eat better but I kind of slacked off over the holidays. It could have been worse but it could have been better, too. I ate lunch out today which killed my diet and budget (McDonald's). I hope I can do better the rest of the week. The problem I have is not having enough time in the mornings no matter what time I try to get up. So I didn't grab anything for lunch. My 2yo often turns a nice relaxed morning with plenty of time into a scramble by dragging his feet about everything.

Scary thought....I have no idea how much is in the checking acct right now. This rarely happens but we have been SOOO busy I just haven't found time to sit down and enter everything into Microsoft Money. I really hope to catch up this weekend. It seems I am behind on EVERYTHING. Luckily, classes end next week but my online class preparation has already started. Ahhh, the joys of working 2 jobs. You'd think we'd be doing better but all this 'extra' money is already earmarked for various things. I put a preliminary budget together for 2007. The key to sticking to it will be ORGANIZATION. Something I really have to work on.

So I FINALLY figured out how much I need to transfer from my reg acct to my sahm acct...76.42 which brings my total up to $120.41. That is not including the coupon money I am in the process of tallying.

The problem I'm having is that my receipts are scattered and I don't know if I'm going to be able to find them all. I guess this is a lesson for me that I need to be more organized. I will make that a goal...be more organized so I can track my savings.

So $120.41 REAL money....I am excited to watch it grow.

No, I still have not tallied my coupon savings. I am really interested in this number but I just haven't gotten around to it. (Maybe I'm just lazy.) Between working 2 jobs and trying to get some quality time with my 2 year old, some things just constantly end up at the bottom of my priority list.

I did open a separate acct. Some call this thier $20 challenge money. I'm calling it my SAHM account. It will motivate me to add to it and I'm hoping it will prove to DH that YES we can afford for me to sah if we sell the house. OK, it only has $43.99 in it right now ($38.99 from rebates and a $5 rebate check). But I know I put some other $$ into our 'regular' acct that needs to be transferred. I'm thinking that will bring it up to around $100. That's not including any coupon $$. I don't know how much that will be but I think it will be enough to almost double it. I don't exactly what this $$ will be earmarked for......but we can worry about that part later. THe point is to show myself (and DH) that there are plenty of easy ways to save and I want to show him the actual dollars saved to prove it!