Today started off kinda rough.  Had a little heart-to-heart with the wife after showing her the budget.  Immediately stuff comes out "what about X" and "that means we can’t do Y".  Well, that’s right.  Looking at that budget, we’ve got zero wiggle-room if we intend to pay our bills.

On the bright side, we came away from that chat knowing that if we wanted to be able to spend money on Christmas presents and not cancel plans we’ve already made…we’re going to have to act fast, and bring in more income.  Also, we need to immediately find ways to eliminate expenses and start living more frugal.  With a combined emergency effort on both fronts, we should still be able to get through the year without dramatically effecting the children’s lives too negatively.

Another plus was that we found some personal checks written to us a few weeks ago to pay for some of the fundraising purchases we made for distant family.  That immediately adds $140 to our "income" this week and helps alleviate the negative bank balances!

I’ve updated the budget files to reflect some minor changes with the newfound checks.  Also, I put in actual values for our power and water/trash bills.  They were a little higher than I’d expected.  :/  Time to start teaching the kids some lessons on being frugal!